


Assorted Drabbles by Nightfalltwen

by nightfalltwen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-18 06:50:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10611513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightfalltwen/pseuds/nightfalltwen
Summary: A various collection of Harry Potter drabbles/ficlets written over the years for friends and challenges.





	1. Intro

These drabbles date back as far as 2006. Some are gifts to friends. Some were "give me a pairing and some words and I'll write you a drabble or a ficlet". Multiple pairings. Probaby too many pairings to list.

Onward!


	2. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The size of her family used to be all he could think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Challenge written for **15minuteficlets** at livejournal back in 2003. The prompt word was: **gathering**

**Title:** Family  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Pairings:** Draco/Parvati

The size of her family used to be all he could think about. So many relations. As an only child growing up, he failed to understand the concept of a large family. He didn't know the love of a sibling and if he was honest with himself, he didn't even know the love of a parent.

He knew her love though.

And that was good enough for him.

She stood near the table piled high with samosas and dishes of butter chicken. She fanned her cheeks, flushed red from the heat of the room. Wisps of ebony hair had fallen from her long braid to frame her face. His heart swelled when she caught his gaze and beckoned him closer.

He wove his way through the crowd of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to where she was serving up a plate of vegetables to her grandmother. He kissed her cheek and helped to pass a plateful of food to her sister, arms already full with the newborn baby that had been born a few weeks ago.

"It smells delicious, Parvati," he said and curled an arm around her waist. Her head naturally tucked under his chin and he could feel her smile against his chest. She loved to cook and loved his compliments.

Someone turned on the stereo and a lively dance tune began. He laughed as her cousins tried to beckon him onto the floor. To join them in a little competition. He shook his head and loudly called above the music that he was quite comfortable where he stood. And he was. Especially with her in his arms.

He kissed her temple, inhaling the spicy scents of her skin. "I love you, you know."

A loud jubilant cry arose from the crowd, warm and inviting. Everyone danced to the music playing. The whirling saris were like a rainbow in the hall. He pulled Parvati out onto the floor and began to dance with her amongst her relatives. She moved sensuously with the music, her fingers weaving into his blond hair, mussing it.

"I love when your family gets together," Draco murmured in her ear.

"They're your family too," she smiled, the wedding ring flashing on her finger as she gracefully moved.

He caught her hand and kissed the ring. "So it is," he said. "I was wondering why all these people were gathered in Malfoy Manor."

Her musical laugh carried above the music, above the people above the noise until it burst through the dark, dreary walls and stone of the Manor. A few more family parties like this and he knew it would be as though the darkness in the manor never existed.

She was lovely.

They were all lovely.

And they were his. And he was theirs.


	3. Various drabbles 2006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends were asked to give me a pairing and some words to inspire the drabbles/ficlets

**Daphne/Pansy: black, frame, support**

It isn't that they are lovers. No, they discussed that last week, tangled up in Pansy's black sheets, waiting for the shudders to ebb. To be lovers, according to both Daphne and Pansy, they would have to be in love. This is not love. This is merely two friends satisfying each other's needs when they find the male population lacking.

Which seems to happen more often than not.

But can Pansy help it if she has this incredible urge to trace the tip of her tongue over Daphne's lithe frame? Of course not. Can Daphne help it if she just can't get enough of sliding her fingers over slick flesh? Completely not the question.

Daphne loves that Pansy is "this close" to becoming the next Mrs. Malfoy. Pansy is always supportive of Daphne's long distance relationship with Adrian Pucey, who visits Slytherin House on weekends.

But when the lights go out, both of them know which bed they will be sleeping in that night.

All it takes is a look.

*********************************

**Sirius/Tonks: candle, nose, reflection**

_It's the one thought._

She's just come back to 12 Grimmauld after having spent eighteen hours watching your godson. No one else has returned and it's just you and your mother's painting and you don't want to even think of the obscenities its screaming. It had rained earlier during her watch and drops were clinging to the tips of her pink hair as she squished her way across the foyer to the stairs.

You told her where the towels were kept and passed her a lit candle to take upstairs.

_It keeps you from shriveling up._

You didn't mean to walk in on her like that. Or maybe you did, you're not sure and it has been so many years since you've had companionship of that kind that you just aren't in control of herself.

She has the towel wrapped around her and she stares back at you in the reflection of the mirror above the sink.

The mirror is cracked.

_You are cracked. Held together by memories._

Her kisses are slow and candy-sweet. She tastes fresh and young, like something you once knew but forgot and you suddenly feel like you are not a man who spent all those years locked away. She tries to anticipate your wants by changing. You catch her gaze and tell her no. That you like her real face, her real hair, her real nose... everything.

You want her the way she is.

_The memory is your anchor to the world beyond the veil. One day... one day indeed._

********************************

**Draco/Ginny: forever, shadow, truth**

Ginny sticks to the shadows now. She knows that she can't abide by the light anymore. The light shows too many truths in her face. Truths she is unwilling to face and unwilling to admit are even there. So she stays where she is, gliding along the darkened pathways where no one can see her.

Except Draco. He always manages to find her and pull her aside.

If it wasn't for him she would be free to walk in the light. Ginny wants to be free of him. Of drowning in his eyes. Of burning in his embrace. She wants to be free of the endless nights twining her fingers in his silvery-blond hair.

But she can't.

Strange how love works. Strange how final and forever it is.

******************************

**Hermione/Ginny: bride, bridle, bird**

You smooth down the front of your dress robes and make a show of watching the carriage driver adjust the bridle on the lead horse's head. Behind you, Ginny is putting the final touches on her make-up and inside you something is dying.

You want to be happy for her, but you can't. She, after all those years of saying she loved you... she is marrying him.

Without a thought to how you feel.

And like yesterday's rubbish you have been tossed to the ground to be picked to pieces by the scavenger birds.

"How do I look, Hermione?" she asks.

You turn from the window and force out one of the many smiles you will be showing today. You want to kiss her more than anything, she is that gorgeous.

"Stunning, Ginny." You wonder how long it will be before you burst into tears. "You make a beautiful bride." Your voice wobbles.

You don't have to wonder about the tears anymore.

**********************************

**Draco living with the Tonks's: elbow, decide.**

It's all rather tragic, my life.

But then it has always been wrought with excitement and tragedy, so I'm not surprised. For example, my arm still twinges at the change of the seasons. You know, after nearly losing it and all in third year.

But now. God, now life is just so... unbearable. I'm stuck -- trapped in this prison all because my father couldn't stand up to them. Or her.

It's horrible.

I'm sure that this wasn't what my mother wanted when she appointed guardianship. They don't even have a decent Martin Miggs collection. Just some mundane American thing that makes no sense whatsoever. Why do Betty and Veronica fight over some arse who looks like Weasel? And why doesn't Reggie just hex them all? Especially that hulking Moose who kind of looks like Crabbe if you squint and hold the book sideways.

I'm so bored and trapped and I feel like soon I will have to chew my arm off at the elbow in order to get away. Whatever God decided that this whole situation would be funny will be smote with all that I have when I get the chance.

_Master Malfoy commits Diecide; Olympus Cowers in Fear_

That'll show th --

"Draco!"

Oh no.

"Draco, It's supper time. Come and set the table please."

"Yes, Aunt Andromeda..."

Kill me now.

*****************************

**Snape/Hermione: liquid, gloat, translucent**

Harry was not added into this pairing. :( sorry.

Moisture from the stone floor seeps upward, soaking through her thin summer robes until her teeth chatter endlessly with icy certainty. She's been looked in here for how many days now? She can't remember.

Judging by the tangles in her hair, she'd guess over a week.

It is so hard. They come down at night just before the moon rises. Some prod her with fingers, others make her suck. If she bites, they waste no time in casting _Crucio_ and gloat as she writhes.

Both kinds of writhing.

The door opens tonight and she sits up, undoing the ties on the front of her robes.

"Stop." His voice is familiar and she does what he tells her to do. He crouches down in the cell and pulls a phial from his sleeve. "No time," is all he says to her questioning look. Then Severus presses the phial to her hand and she stares, fixated on, of all things, the translucent skin of his wrist.

"Is that?" The phial's contents are black.

"Your _only_ way out, Ms. Granger." He answers. "Of _your_ choosing"

He leaves.

She chooses.

_Freedom_

********************************

**Hermione/Crabbe: grass, surprise, bald**

In seventh year you tutored him in Charms, Transfiguration and, to your surprise, Arithmancy. The tutoring was an extra credit assignment for you and a detention for him after being caught smoking in the boys toilet. Crabbe had a minor reading disability, you found out shortly after starting, making him seem more slow witted than his peers.

Strangely, helping him made you feel wonderful. Especially once he got the hang of the Arithmancy problems.

"Granger, I don't want to go outside and practice levitating stumps," he grumbled one day.

"Vincent," you said firmly, "We can't move onto Transfiguration, until you are confident in this revision assignment. And I'd really like to work on changing an animal to a goblet without having the animal come back bald this time." Really, it was only a matter of him getting the incantation right. He slurred his words a lot.

He grumbled another protest, but you wouldn't back down.

Outside he managed to complete the levitation exercise with an improved precision. You found yourself proud for having been able to get through to him and excitedly gave him a hug. Maybe it had been a bad idea, maybe a good...

The next thing you knew, you were on the ground. Grass and his fingers tangled into your hair and his lips bruised yours with their ferocity.

You kissed him back that day.

Transfiguration was postphoned.

********************************

 **Blaise/Hermione: Library, Sneeze, Dust** ((rated R))

Draco's phrase to describe Hermione Granger was always "filthy little Mudblood." He said it so often and with such contempt in the company of yourself and the other boys in your year, that for three years you were dead certain that he had a romantic fixation on the girl. That idea was quickly dispelled when Draco became very much involved with one Stephan Cornfoot of Ravenclaw.

Lucius Malfoy lost control of a lot more than just his fortune when he was tossed into Azkaban.

Now your phrase. The one that you use to describe Hermione Granger. Lately it has been "ripe for the plucking." And plucking her you do. Sort of like a bass cello with that low throbbing sound.

Favourite places include the far back stacks of the Library, her shoulders pinned against the shelves, your hand under her skirt.

Oh how you love when she whispers, "Oh _God_ , Blaise..." in that soft whimper that she has.

You don't know why she lets you. You don't know why she picked you. Quite honestly you don't really care because if you start to question it, you might lose out on a good shag (All those books really _do_ make a difference, by the way). In any case, logic and reason are completely ignored. You pretend it isn't there and just take pleasure in those cute dust streaks on her sweaty face.

What can you say? You're seventeen. Logic and sex go together like stealth and sneezes.

********************************

**Remus-centric, PoA, Splash, Stroke, Glass**

Remus looked around the small office and made some mental notes of the things he still needed to pack away. His books and clothes were neatly stored and the equipment he'd brought along was ready to be shipped. According to the Map, Harry was very near to the classroom. Explanations and consoling would take the rest of the time Remus had left.

The Grindylow tank had already been emptied, but the Kelpie fry were still swimming about in their own tank, noses bumping against the glass. They would need to be released when he got to Ireland. Remus flicked his wand to the quill and parchment on his desk.

_Release Fry_

The quill then wobbled after it jotted down the note and fell over onto the scratched surface of the desk. Remus walked over and brushed the quill aside to check and make certain that no stain had been left by the ink.

Scratches were one thing, ink stains were another.

He stroked the soft walnut of the desk, his fingers taking in each bump and grain. He read the desk like Braille, thinking back to all the papers he graded and students he talked to. And how those first few students he saw used to worry at the splintered corner until he offered them some chocolate and gave them a smile.

He didn't want to leave this desk, this school, the students. He had no choice. Severus saw to that.

The kelpies splashed in their tank and the floorboards creaked. A soft knock echoed in the room and Remus looked up to see James' face and Lily's eyes. He smiled.

"I saw you coming," he said.

********************************

**Snape/Sirius: sigh, relax, tarnish.**

Everyone has left 12 Grimmauld except Snape who is finishing up a report for Dumbledore. You don't know what to do with yourself while he's around and Kreacher just yells at you when you go upstairs and all you want is to delve into that twelve year old scotch that you have hidden behind the kettle.

You never get a chance to relax when the Order is around.

"How much longer?" you ask, assuring yourself that the question does not sound like a petulant child's "are we there yet?"

"When I am _finished_ , Black," says Snape, his quill pausing, "I will leave. Dumbledore assigned this task to me and I will _not_ rush through it. Unlike some people, my reports are not a mishmash of point form notes." His quill continues.

You grit your teeth and bite back the snarls. You promised Remus you would work on controlling your urge to strangle Snape. You couldn't say no to his pleas and somehow managed to promise a week without fighting. " _Some_ people would rather be succinct and to the point, than embellishing their reports with flowery phrases."

"Attention to detail is not _flowery_ , Black." Snape looks up from his report and scowls. "If you need a simpler version, I will have someone put my report into layman's terms for you."

He is trying to get a rise out of you.

It is working.

_One. Two. Three. Four..._

You let out a low sigh and hope that he doesn't hear you, but you can feel your fingernails digging sharply into your palms. Inside the blood is past boiling, but you do not, _will not_ give him the satisfaction. No. You will not give him a story to take back to the other Order members. They already think badly of you and your ability to work alongside this man.

The scotch is no longer behind the kettle. You fill a glass, throw it back, then fill a second glass. It burns, but at least it is something that makes you _feel._ For a moment you pause and realise that the man seated behind you, most likely watching your movements, makes you feel as well. Albeit, the emotion is usually rage, but at least it's a feeling.

You turn and meet his gaze. _Gotcha!_ You were right. He was watching you.

Neither one of you look away. It is a steady lock of gazes, perhaps a challenge that no one will back down from. Minutes pass, perhaps more. All you can think of is how you've never really spent this much time in the same room as Snape without butting heads.

You take a step towards.

And fall.

 **"KREACHER!!"** Your shoelaces are tied together.

The rickety old chair that he is sitting on breaks and you are on top of Snape in a very undignified manner. The glass is broken and you can see...

_Blood?_

He's cut himself on a shard, deeply in his shoulder. All he does is glare at you as you try and get off. Somehow, in a vain attempt at first aid and despite his protests, the sleeve is ripped more and below the slice in his arm you see them. Just below the cut of his bicep they mark his skin, white and puckered like little mealworms.

Scars.

Old ones. New ones.

For once in your life you are at a loss for words.

The pre-Azkaban Sirius would have laughed at this man's plight. The pre-Azkaban Sirius would have mocked profusely. All you can do is stare at them and wonder. How old are they? Where did they come from? How many does he have? Why did he start?

You meet his gaze. It is livid with contempt for you have uncovered something terrible. You don't know what to do. This has tarnished your image of him. It wasn't a glowing image, but never once did you think that he was the kind of person to inflict this sort of pain on himself.

"I will kill you." His tone is low. "They are no one's business."

"Tell me about them." Somehow it isn't a question and you don't know why you are suddenly so interested in finding out more about someone you have hated for so long.

"I will _not_!" He covers his shoulder with his hand and backs away from you.

"Tell me, Snape." You are insistant. "I dare you." Taunting. "Tell me the truth."

"No."

"Are you scared?"

"NO!"

They say that the eyes are the window to the soul or some shit like that. You never really believed it until now. His eyes are betraying his words. Glittering black and full of malice, but you manage to see even deeper and find...fear.


	4. Christmas Card Drabbles 2006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Multiple pairings and ratings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote these on the inside of Christmas cards in 2006 and mailed them to all my friends

**Snape/Lupin**

He likes to walk by the lake at four on Wednesdays. You know this because you saw him that one time and that one other time and also the time after that. If he knows that you watch him, he doesn't say anything. Would it stop you if he did? Probably not.

The wind blows his hair around his face and you are reminded of how you want to tangle your fingers in it. You want to describe it as lush and thick, but really it is thin and a bit coarse.

But you like it that way. And you always have.

Just as you have always liked the way that the light always seems to highlight that faded scar in his eyebrow. That one he got back when you were trying out for the Slytherin team and you flung the Quaffle at him out of a fit of ... rage? attraction? what was it? And why the hell was he there in the first place?

Your memory has always been hazy on that fact.

In any case, it hit him in the face and suddenly there was all this blood and Black was on you, like the dog that he is, pounding you until he stopped it all, making Potter hold dog-man back. 

You remember him crouching and speaking to you in that tone you love.

"You get the point for this one, but don't think that I'm not keeping score."

And he walked away.

And you watched him.

Just as you watch him every Wednesday at four.

*************  
**Remus/Narcissa**

Lucius is gone again.

Two days after my birthday and he's gone again.

How long did he stay this time? A week? It doesn't matter. Time looses all meaning at the bottom of the cut crystal tumbler. When was the last time I was warmer than the cheap warmth that comes from the splash of fire whiskey? 

I often wonder.

Then I think back to nights in the Gryffindor tower. Smuggled in when no one was looking by a pair of warm, calloused hands that never treated me with disregard. Loving eyes that saw me for who I was and not for the size of my trust fund.

God, I miss that.

How he used to carefully charm away the purple marks on my neck so there wouldn't be any evidence for anyone connect me to him. How slowly he grew to ignore the rules, brushing up against me in the corridor. How he pinned me against the bookshelves in the library and we kissed like kissing was going out of style.

I would go to him tonight.

Then I remember that it’s the full moon tonight and he is indisposed.

There is this aching need for him inside of me. It burns and burns and suddenly Lucius is home again. I hide my surprise and also my disappointment. I pour him a snifter of brandy and we sit in thundering silence. He never knows that my thoughts are on a werewolf elsewhere in the country.

Which is how it has always been.

*************  
**Remus/Sirius**

The morning sky was lit red with the first rays of sunshine. Never a good sign when the sky was red.

 _Red sky in the morning, sailor's warning_.

Remus shivered and drew the sash of his bathrobe tightly around his waist. He wasn't a sailor, tended to get a little green when crossing the Channel, but he always believed in the omen of red skies.

There was a red sky that October morning.

There was a red sky the morning he'd heard Sirius escaped.

And a red sky on the morning that Severus had spilled the secret.

There was a red sky now.

It was never a good sign.

And he so very much wanted to ignore it and crawl back into bed next to the warm body beneath the sheets. To slip his hands over Sirius's skin and kiss away the tears that gathered during his dreams of Azkaban. For making Sirius smile had become as addictive as the coffee percolating in the kitchen. He'd even gone so far as a small striptease because it made him laugh.

Remus missed the days where they could laugh easily.

And now there was this damn red sky.

It was always a bad sign.

"Remus," Sirius called blearily from the other room. "That was Albus on the fire. We have to go to the Ministry. Now."

*************  
**Snape/Lupin**

Midnight kisses.

During that brief moment in the night when its not quite one day and its not quite the next day, when its completely and totally your time of night and he's there with his arms around you and there's nothing you would rather do than push him up against the wall and have your way with him.

Chocolate kisses.

The only time you are able to tell that he's been eating something other than those infernal lemon cookies that he professes to love. You know that he only eats them because he feels chocolate is too good for him. But there was this time when you got him that whole box of Belgian truffles and stayed up until three eating every one with him. His kisses tasted sweet and exotic for three nights.

Silver kisses.

Its dangerous to be in love with him. You whisper "Severus" and he whispers "Remus" but that's all it can be because its dangerous like how silver is dangerous to you. Being in love with him could kill you, but not being in love with him could kill you also. It was safe before the first kiss, but now you know what you were missing and even though you worry that some day he could disappear from your life, you cling to him.

For that one last kiss. Dangerous, sweet and secluded.

*************  
**Harry/Hermione**

The air is filled with peppermint and you're sitting on the couch beside Hermione trying to fix a first year's croquet mallet with some good old fashioned elbow grease. Why on earth Gerry Towne brought his set with him to school, you'll never figure out, but you don't mind fixing it for him.

Or you didn't mind until she sat next to you, licking that candy cane as she did her homework.

Now all you can do is concentrate on the peppermint smell and the fact that you are getting cold sweats on your palms from the effort to keep from staring as her lips sweep up and down the candy.

"I'm going outside for a walk," you choke out finally after hearing her bite of the end. Gerry Towne's croquet set can wait.

"But Harry, it's snowing."

You mumble something about liking to walk in the snow and suddenly she is joining you and you are both outside, wearing fuzzy red winter hats and mittens. And she _still_ has that bloody candy cane! So you pray that the peppermint is carried away on the wind, but it isn't ( _typical_ ) and it's driving you insane.

The next thing you know, you've walked out of sight of the school and she's got her arm around your waist and your heart is pounding so loud that you think the Giant Squid will hear the vibrations. Then from somewhere you finally find that Gryffindor bravery that everyone talks about and you pluck that candy cane from her fingers. It ends up on the ground somewhere.

And so do the two of you.

Peppermint has never tasted so good.

*************  
**Dark!Ginny/Barelymentioned!Draco**

She likes to stand on the balcony in thunderstorms. The electricity makes the hairs on her arms stand up and she adores the feeling. Behind her, Draco is sleeping between black silk sheets, smirking in post coital bliss and Ginny is standing on the balcony tracing her finger over the blackened skull and snake on her arm, regretting and hating herself for all that she's done.

So she stands on the balcony, drawing on the hand rolled fag. She fills her lungs with blue smoke, tar and poison. She thinks its ironic that she's blackening herself inside even though it's been that way for so very long.

She never really knew the definition of ironic, but she liked how it sounded.

She wishes that she could go out and stand barefoot in the rain. She wishes that she could cleanse herself with it. But what is the point. She chose the mark. She can not choose to undo it.

Her hand falls to rest against her hip, bony and sharp. Always that way. Ever since she was sixteen.

Cigarettes keep her skinny and her mind off the rain.

She wants the rain, like she wants breakfast, but instead she takes another drag and thinks about the definition of irony.

*************  
**Femslash**

You're watching her make a sandwich and all you can think about is where those hands were last night.

You're watching her lick a dollop of mustard off her finger and all you can think about is where her tongue was last night.

You're curling your toes inside your maryjanes because all you can think about is how much you just want to slide your own hands beneath her skirt and toy with her the way she toyed with you last night.

Tonight, however, it is your turn.

You're going to take her outside and the two of you are going to walk down towards the lake. You're going to pin her against the ground and she's going to let you.

She's always loved how aggressive you can be.

"Come on," she says, wrapping the sandwich in a napkin.

She makes your head spin and your pulse race. Among other things. But tonight is your turn. And you're going to show her that she's not the only Ravenclaw who's signed out those books from the library.

*************  
**Harry/Hermione**

You're lying on your back on the cold stone floor because Hermione hit you with her pillow and made you tumble backwards off the arm of the couch. Probably had to do with that remark you made about the ink smudge on her nose, or perhaps it was just because she felt like smacking you.

You don't really care.

Anyway. When you fell you heard a rip of some sort and now you're looking up at her. Your watch is caught to a piece of yarn and there is now a hole unraveling in her jumper and the more you try to fix it, the more it unravels. And the more it unravels, the more of her red and white polka-dot bra you can see.

Perhaps it would be beneficial to keep "trying to fix it"

Her eyes meet yours and suddenly she is down on the floor with you, pushing your glasses out of the way to kiss you and all you want to do is slide your fingers into that hole in her jumper. Boy are you glad that today's word on your calendar was concupiscent. At least now you really know what it means.

*************  
**Draco/Parvati**

Draco loves to kiss her in the dark. Whether it be locked inside a broom closet or with all the drapes on his bed drawn tightly closed, he loves to kiss her in the dark. Maybe it's because it is easier to imagine that she isn't a Gryffindor with the lights off. Maybe it's easier to think that she is a Slytherin pureblood like the kinds of girls he is supposed to kiss.

But none of the Slytherin girls' kisses taste fresh and sweet like cherry popsicles in August.

"I've lost my bangle," she says after a session of spicy kisses.

Draco isn't sure he wants to look for it. It would mean turning on the lights.

She slips off the bed onto the floor, disappearing from sight. "It's my favourite. I wore it the first day you kissed me and every day since then."

Draco is more than surprised and suddenly he realises that she's never been the one who's wanted to hide in the dark. So he ties the drapes back against the bedpost and slips onto the floor beside her, pushing a curl of black hair, that has slipped from her braid, behind her ear. He kisses her cheek and with much laughter they crawl around on the floor until they find the bangle she lost.

*************  
**Ron/Umbridge** (blame LOL)

Detention again. Something stupid about polishing his broomstick in the prefects bath, which is completely insane because he didn't even have his broom in the bath to begin with. 

Not that Ron's complaining about the detention. He finds it strangely alluring to be locked up in a room with her. Using that quill of hers. Causing all that pain. He secretly likes to feel the burn. But he doesn't tell anyone this because they all hate her. But sometimes he wishes she would just take that whip off her wall and use it.

No one knows Ron is into that kind of thing.

No one knows he's been fantasizing about it.

No one knows that it's all about the whip and the quill.

And Umbridge.

*************  
**Harry/Cho**

"What do you want for Christmas?" she asks him.

Harry looks at Cho and five thousand thoughts begin flitting through his brain. More than half of them not fit for public. He smiles and takes her hand in his, marveling at how cold her fingers always are. Perhaps he will get her some self warming mittens.

"As long as I have you around," he says, his thumb running over the wedding band on her finger, "I don't really need anything."

He finds that the truth always makes her smile.

"Would you like to be a father?" she asks nonchalantly.

He looks at her with unsurpassed shock. The sparkle in her eye gives it all away and he wraps his arms around her and swings her in a circle, knowing in his heart that she will never be sad again.

*************  
**Ron/Harry**

It's hot in the shed, but you're hiding with Ron from Fred and George who are desperately trying to get you to test their new invention. You know it will have something to do with being a bird or a lizard or some other kind of creature, so the two of you are hiding. The last thing that either one of you want to do during the summer is spend it being guinea pigs for the twins.

In any case, you're standing very close to him, trying not to breathe in the dark shed, while Fred and George are outside calling for the two of you. A band of light leaks through the crack in the wall, lighting up a million sparkles of dust and you look up and see that his nose is all freckled and shiny from sweat.

"Harry you need to move over, this rake is poking me in the back," he says and shifts closer.

But there isn't any room for you to move and so his hips fit against yours more tightly than they had before and all you want to think about is his shiny nose and how much you want to kiss him. And you hope that he doesn't notice something else poking him.

Then his eyes meet yours and suddenly you know. 

You know that he's thinking the same thing that you are and soon your glasses are sitting on a shelf somewhere and you're kissing him in that dark shed, tasting the last sweet days of summer and you're sure that Fred and George will find you soon. But you hardly care, because _this_ is it.

*************  
**Neville/Luna**

Cartwheels?

This is the eighth time in as many nights that Neville's spotted her from his window in the Gryffindor Tower. Every time he wants to go down to ask her what she's doing, but at the last minute, between shoving his feet into his galoshes and putting on his cloak, he chickens out and decides to just watch her from the window.

Over and over she goes and he wonders how she manages to keep her pajama top from flying open. Permanent Sticking Charm perhaps? And her long blond hair is just flying and he's pretty sure that she's somehow going to trip over it. If one can trip over one's hair, that is.

Drips of rain start to slide down the windowpane and if he squints more of her appear inside the droplets, turning over and over, hair fanning out in a wet curtain of yellow.

_Doesn't she feel embarrassed when people watch her?_

But she still turns cartwheels and now her hands are brown with mud and grass and the cuffs of her pajama bottoms flap around her ankles.

Then he knows that for Luna, it isn't about what people think. It's always about the perfect arc to the perfect cartwheel.

And suddenly Neville is in love.

*************  
**Dean/Harry**

Definitely war.

But not that kind of war.

Snowball war.

Dean and Harry hide behind the woodpile next to Hagrid's hut, carefully building their supply of ammunition.

But there is an ambush and Dean throws himself over Harry to take the brunt of the assault, heaps of snow being thwacked into his back from the other team. His cloak is covering both their faces, but he can see Harry breathing hard, green eyes wide and sparkling. Their noses are almost touching.

Without a thought, Dean tugs off his glove and undoes the tie to Harry's cloak in order to touch the smooth skin of his neck. Dark finger against milk-white skin. The pulse races beneath his touch.

And Dean can't help himself.

But Harry is the first to move.

And God, the kiss is like frozen fire.

*************  
**Percy/Tonks**

How it started, he didn't know.

How she ended up living in the flat across the hall from him, that he didn't know either.

How she always managed to run out of everything, from sugar to Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey _just_ when he sat down to dinner was yet another mysterious thing he didn't know.

How she managed to be pressed against the wall, her legs around his hips, kissing him the way she was kissing him... oh he knew that. Or at least he thought he did.

Percy was no nonsense. He was straight-laced, organized and a Taurus to the extreme. Hell, his kitchen was practically alphabetized. Tonks, on the other hand, was adaptable, eccentric, dropping her things as she walked through her flat. So much the Aquarius. And they clashed like you wouldn't believe.

But something clicked when she stopped by. Or something exploded.

And boy did it explode in a very good way for Mister Percy Weasley.

*************  
**Harry/Ginny**

Teaching Ginny things about the Muggle world has always been easier than teaching Ron. 

Ginny listens to you with rapt fascination as you explain the rules of football during that first game and cheers like mad for the team that you're cheering for. She learns fast what is good and what isn't and almost makes you hide when she reams out the referee.

You've never heard such language from her before.

In the coffee shop after the game you spot a dog-eared book sticking out of her bag while she's gone to wash her hands.

You ask her about it when she returns and her face goes the most random shade of pink.

"It's that book... _The Hobbit_ by Tolkien," she says and sips her hot chocolate. "You were talking about it and I wanted to know what you meant."

You're surprised because you can't remember the last time you talked about _The Hobbit_ in front of her. Or you do remember, but that was _months_ ago and you didn't think anyone remembered you mentioning it. After all, Ron looked at you like you had sprouted horns when you mentioned Bilbo and Gollum, and Dudley never, ever, talked about it with you because he wasn't "into that nancy elf shite."

Ginny's always been better at understanding, or wanting to understand, the things you like.

Perhaps that's why you like her so much.

*************  
**George/Hermione**

"It says here that you're a snake," said Hermione as she ran her finger over the cheesy Chinese zodiac placemat.

"You lie!" George shook the tiny piece of steamed bamboo with his chopsticks with mock-disgust.

"Nope." She grinned at him. "According to this you are a snake and I am a goat." She laughed at the faces he began to make. "Knock it off."

He flicked a piece of fried rice at her then signaled for the cheque and paid it. They left the Golden Dragon arm in arm and walked down towards Picadilly Circus. "This snake is going to beat your little goat arse into the ground when we get back to the Burrow," he teased her, nudging with his elbow.

"Not if this snake refuses to admit that he doesn't know a ruddy thing about Bails, stumps, innings, centuries, leg before wicket and everything else to do with Cricket," She teased. "Wise and intense you may be, oh snake, but I was on my school's cricket team before Hogwarts. This goat is quite the player."

George snorted and slid his hand down her arm to clasp her fingers with his. "If that's true then this snake is the Queen Mum..."

"Shall I transfigure you a hat then, your highness?"

He swatted her arse lightly and kissed her cheek. "Perhaps this snake will concede defeat to his lovely goat."

She smiled and turned her head, kissing him on the lips. "This goat accepts."

*************  
**Harry/Hermione**

Harry loves to watch her make potions. She is always so intense when she brews and because it's Easter and there are next to no students around, she is able to brew a little more freely than before.

So she is making a protective potion for him.

He finds it ironic that something protective contains the flowers of Bittersweet Nightshade, one of the more deadly plants in the world.

But he trusts her.

Just as he trusts that their kisses will always be fresh and mindblowing. Just as he trusts that he will never find a Zeppelin song that he hates. Just like he trusts that tacos will always appeal to him.

He has blind faith in Hermione. Always will.

Perhaps it comes from loving her.

She looks up from the cauldron and smiles at him. His heart leaps and he knows deep inside that he will have no need for this protection.

He has her.

*************  
**Ron/Luna**

Ron brings the plate of Danishes from the kitchen and sits down on the sofa. Luna is threading beads and corks onto a thread for a new necklace. She smiles and shows him her work.

"Another one that says Trogdor?" he asks.

"It's better than it saying fhqwhgads," she laughs airily and strings another bead.

"Where did you find these words?"

"Hermione showed them to me on her kompyewter. I am going to get one for Daddy so he will have an easier time searching for stories for _The Quibbler_." She knots the string and bites it short. "Hermione showed me so much."

"She did?" He licks the icing from his fingers.

"Oh yes. I plan to show you some of the things I learned tonight..." Her tone loses its floaty feeling and the hair on the back of Ron's neck prickles deliciously.

"Is that so?"

"That certainly is so."

Ron makes a note to find out just what kinds of things his and Harry's wives are learning on these kompyewter things.

*************  
**Ginny/Lavender**

Both of you are in line at Florean's. Your hand is around her waist, resting lightly on her hip and neither of you care about the stares. You love her like you love sunrises and butterflies. It's natural to you.

So when did it start?

You know that the feelings were there all along, but it was definitely that time you and her were caught outside in that rainstorm together that cinched it. She had asked you to help her with her toenails and you both decided that outside would give better light.

Then the rain came.

Her hair hung in red spirals around her face and silver droplets of water dripped off the end of her freckled nose and you both tried to shield yourselves beneath that tree. Not a wand between the two of you.

Who kissed whom first? You don't remember. All you do remember is how she tasted like cherry chip ice cream and how she bubbled with laughter when you remarked upon it later.

Now it is months later you stand in Florean's, painfully in love with her. She orders the cherry chip and you find the paper napkins, knowing that once you leave the shop and dart into the alley with her, there will be a great need for them.

People stare at your giggles and kisses.

But you hardly mind.

It is and will always be natural to you.

*************  
**Draco/Hermione**

In love with a Mudblood? That is absurd. Malfoy's do not fall in love with mudbloods. It is just not done.

Do I care that her hair reminds me of molten caramel? Absolutely not. Malfoy's do not care about such things. Ever.

It doesn't matter to me that she was sitting down by the lake yesterday, weaving daisies into a chain. I could care less that she stuck one of the flowers behind her ear and it made her eyes sparkle in contrast to the stark white of the petals.

I am not in love with a Mudblood!

But then I think about how her lips are bowed just slightly in the middle and I wonder what they would feel like, pressed up against mine. Certainly they wouldn't feel like Pansy's thin ones. And I wonder if she would ever allow me… 

Blast!

I hate that she has done this to me. I hate that I lie awake thinking about what she might taste like.

I hate that I am in love with her.

Things are supposed to be easy for Malfoy's. We have opportunities and advantages in this world.

So why does this feel like the hardest thing I will ever have to go through?

Damnit.

*************  
**Neville/Mandy**

You never knew that she had a birthmark on her stomach, just above her navel shaped just like a Q.

However, there were a lot of things that you didn't know about Mandy Brocklehurst until that night when you both ended up in the kitchens to nick food before winter finals.

Things like how she meticulously cut the crusts off her bread. Or how she liked to be pressed against the kitchen table and kissed with wild abandon.

You learned a lot that night and none of it had to do with NEWT level Transfiguration.

And she learned a lot about you. Like how you're not just a Herbology nerd with a toad that you always misplace. And how you have this uncanny way of remembering exactly what spots on her body make her tremble.

Dobby and the rest of the House Elves had a _lot_ to clean up that night. You and her left the kitchens in such a sad state.

Do you care?

A little. And you might go down and help clean up.

Would you do it again? To hear her cry out like that?

Most definitely.

*************  
**Ernie-centric**

Ernie doesn't even say goodbye to her, he's that angry and bitter at her for choosing to stay behind at the school to take that extra summer qualification course before she leaves Hogwarts forever. He hurts her the only way he knows how by refusing to speak to her when she calls his name to bid him goodbye. He knows there are tears in her eyes as the train pulls out of the station, but he doesn't look her way.

He's _that_ angry.

After all, how could she decide to stay? She is supposed to be with him and now she isn't? It's just not right.

Soon he finds that the summer weeks fly by and she doesn't write and the further along it gets the harder it is for him to start a letter to her. He knows she is most likely slipping through his fingers but he doesn't know what to do.

He is scared. He has never been in love before.

More time. Still nothing. 

He's standing in a tartan shop in North Edinburgh with his mum as she fusses over the right sporran and whether or not he is to wear a Sgian Dubh or a dirk with the Macmillan regalia. The Highland Games are being held near his home this year and his family is to be well represented. 

Except she won't be there.

The door to the shop opens and the bell tinkles merrily. He fingers a sterling silver necklace shaped like a thistle and wonders if she likes jewelry, then realises that nothing, no gift will cushion the fall that he suspects will happen. He is torn.

"I like the Claddagh rings better." Her voice is dry and raspy.

He turns so fast that his kilt spins out in a circle and he is sure that the old lady hemming the plaid for his father has gotten an eyeful. But he doesn't care. All he cares about is the person standing next to him, a broom in her hand. He falls to his knees and wraps his arms around her waist to bury his face against her stomach.

"I'm sorry," is all he can manage.

And when she cradles his head with her wind-chapped hand, he squeezes her tighter, never wanting to be the fool who lets her go.

Later she will talk of finally writing a letter to him and then following the owl on her broom. Later she will talk of coming to the realization that there was more to her life than study and that he was the one her smiles were meant for. Later she will tell him that she loves him.

Right now, they are content to just be silent.

And connected.


	5. Playing footsie - H/Hr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A small H/Hr ficlet written in 2006

Hermione met Harry’s eyes and winked, her nose scrunching up a bit as she glanced over the large book propped up on the table in the Library. Curling a strand of hair around her delicate pinky finger she lowered her eyes and went back to the complex Arithmancy problems in her textbook. With a smile he lowered his eyes back to the star charts he was working on, tapping his quill on the book every so often as he tried to keep concentration.

Beneath the table, however, was an entirely different story.

Hermione had removed her brown oxford and begun to creep her toes along his ankle, making Harry shift in his chair. Back and forth it went, her big toe tickled the top of his foot and then lightly traced down along his instep. Harry slowly removed one of his shoes. He succumbed to her game and, beneath the table he met her sock-clad foot.

Above the table, there was nothing.

They were just two students working hard on their homework. A quick glance would only show them to be deeply focused on what was in front of their faces. Of course, that quick glance would not show the increased heartbeats, or the shallow breathing had become the result of this simple game of footsie.

“Hermione,” Harry said, his voice rasping only slightly, barely noticeable except to her, “Could you pass me that extra scroll over there?”

She nodded; her foot still connected to his and passed the scroll to him. As he took it, he ran his finger along the back of her hand, sending shivers up her spine. She looked back at him and this time it was his turn to wink at her. He opened the scroll and began a new star chart as nonchalantly as one person can be, unrolling a scroll, as the beautiful woman across from you begins to slide her foot up along his calf…

“Hey Harry! Hey Hermione!” Ron’s lanky form collapsed into the chair next to Hermione. Their feet jumped apart as if stung by a bee. Both could feel the guilty blush as it crept onto their cheeks. The kind of blush that happens when one is caught with one’s hand in the cookie jar.

They’d managed to keep their relationship quiet for the most part. Ron knew, of course, and Ginny, but both had sworn to keep it under wraps until both Harry and Hermione were ready to go public. It had started at Christmas, where a chance meeting under the mistletoe had opened the door wide to possibilities. Now it was almost the end of the year and though it was hard to find places to be alone and away from the general student population (behind Hagrid’s Hut was always a popular spot), they still were content with what they had.

It was thrilling sometimes, to be secretive.

“Do you have the notes from yesterday’s Transfiguration lesson?” Ron asked, pulling out a text and opening it on the table.

Without answering yes or no, Harry leaned down and pulled the necessary parchments out of his bag and slid them to Ron. Hermione went back to her Arithmancy problems and Harry went back to his star charts. Poor Ron had no clue that he’d interrupted anything because, like most other people in the Library, he’d not looked under the table to see what was going on.

Hermione tapped the feathered end of her quill against her chin and read over a particularly complex problem, slowly sliding her foot back towards Harry. The first touch was tentative, like a question then it grew bolder, sliding back to its previous activity of sliding up his calf, only this time inside the leg of his trousers. Harry smiled without looking up and stretched his opposite foot across the space beneath the table to touch her other leg.

“Harry?” Ron spoke up, causing Harry to pause, his foot still pressed against her lower leg.

“Yes Ron?”

“Much as I like you, mate,” Ron said with a lopsided grin, “I would much rather you play footsie with someone else and leave my leg alone.”

Harry’s face went white and he looked to Hermione, wide-eyed. She snuck a look under the table only to indeed find Harry’s white-socked foot pressed against Ron’s calf. She gulped hard, trying to hold back the bubble of laughter forming in her lungs. It was no use. Her whole body shook and she burst into raucous laughter. Harry snatched his foot back and went completely red in the face. Ron sat back in his chair holding his sides, his face red for a different reason.

Two minutes later Madam Pince dismissed them from the library for their disturbance.


	6. The last of 2006 ficlets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A selection of my favourites from the rest of my 2006 drabbles

**Sir Cadogan/Violet -- One Wild Night (or Knight)**

He always meets her on the way back from one of her teas in that magical space between one frame and the next. He always starts with her finger tips and kisses his way over her palm until he gets to her wrists. God, how he loves the delicate skin on the inside of her wrists. And how she whimpers just so when he begins to nibble it.

"Cadogan . . ." is all she manages to murmur. His lips stop moving.

"My darling," he response with a quiet tenderness that is meant only for her to see in that space between portraits where no one can see them.

"You should not kiss me like that." She attempts a cessation of his ministrations.

"Violet," he ignores her half-hearted protests. "Did you know that your artist gave you the most delicious wrists?"

She moans softly and understands by the carnal look in his eyes that she is in for one wild night.

Or rather, one wild knight.

**********************

**Blaise/Hermione**

Blaise never wanted to be a hero. Blaise wanted to do nothing more than coast through the school in the background, mysterious and dark… the unknown Slytherin. And he never wanted to be a hero for the Mudblood, coming to her aid when Potter could not.

But he found Hermione in the forest, leg broken by one of the many traps set out by his kin, her skin pallid as she nudged herself along the root-tangled ground. Pained squeaks tumbled from her lips with every movement, the fractured tibia pushing against her skin in a bruised lump and Blaise could see how it was very nearly rupturing the skin. He watched her gather her strength after every inch, amazed that she would keep going.

And then Blaise understood. She kept going, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. Gryffindor bravery pushed her along.

She didn't protest when he came to her, crouched down and scooped her into his arms. The medical tent wasn't far. Her thin arms held fast to his neck and she did not cry.

Blaise never wanted to be a hero, but she seemed to bring it out in him.

**********************  
 **Severus/Hermione**

Hermione has never been one to jump headlong into love without giving it the proper amount of consideration. She thinks it would be foolish to not weigh the options or look at it from every angle possible. But when she actually fell in love, it bowled her over to such an extent that she didn't think she could possibly handle the intensity of the emotion.

"Miss Granger, I am certain that there is nothing of any interest on my desk. Eyes to your work." Severus called from the front of the room. A titter of laughter spread out across the room.

Hermione's gaze slipped to the potion in front of her, but she watched him mark papers -- peeking out from beneath her fringe in a vain attempt to understand why the curl of his lip and the arch of his brow made her heart pound in a way that was certainly not logical.

It took her a long time to realise that love can never be logical.

**********************  
 **Harry/Ginny**

Harry rests his chin on the arm of the sofa to watch Ginny sleep. He does it often because when she's asleep she can not shy away from his constant stare or give him that hurt expression she's managed to do since he told her it wasn't safe to be together. He explores Ginny with his eyes, noting the way her pale lashes lie perfectly against her skin, the way her lips part and how she is so close to snoring but never actually gets there. 

Her eyes dart beneath her lids. She's dreaming and the way her fingers curl under her cheek, coupled with upward curl of the corner of her mouth, he guesses the dreams are good. He wants to climb into her dreams and see what her mind thinks about when she's caught up in a subconscious perspective, but he keeps to himself.

Content to watch her sleep and pretend that she is always and forever his.

**********************  
 **Harry/Draco**

There is something to be said for things that finally click into place. You don't question your judgement anymore and you don't try to explain things with logic because logic doesn't matter when it comes to heated feelings and strong emotion.

At the end of everything, Harry is there with you. Despite all things that happened before, despite suspicion, despite being considered his enemy by people who love him, Harry is there with you. Because he made that choice and it clicks.

Your arms fold around his chest and his fingertips brush your sleeves. Outside, the world is falling apart. Everything you have ever been and ever known has dropped away or died or turned against you. They don't understand why you've become who you are now. Why you have sided with this messy-haired wizard and sometimes, fuck, you don't understand it either.

"Draco, your arms are shaking." Harry doesn't move and he doesn't need to coerce confessions from your lips. You give them readily.

"I'm scared, Potter."

**********************  
 **Neville/Luna**

"They shouldn't call them butterfly kisses," Luna says suddenly.

Neville stops kissing her cheeks, eyelids and forehead to look at her. His finger traces over the whorl of her ear and he waits because he knows she will have an explanation for this as she has something to back her strong declarations. He likes her thoughts as much as he likes everything else about her.

"Butterflies don't have lips. They have a proboscis which is more or less a very long nose and people don't kiss with their noses."

Neville can't help himself and leans over to nudge the tip of his nose against the hollow of her throat. "What about Eskimo Kisses?"

Luna tickles under his chin until he finally tilts his face up to hers. Her eyes search his as if she is trying to ascertain some kind of profound answer from inside his head. She breaks out into a smile. A smile that never fails to warm Neville to his toes.

She lets out a breath. "That only counts if you're wearing a parka, but we can do more research on that when we get to Antarctica for the Quibbler."

**********************  
 **Harry/Draco**

Harry stands at the end of all things, knowing what he has to do and why he has to do it but still not finding the strength yet to go on. The war has been hard and he has lost so much. But he isn't the only one. Beside him stands Draco and if Harry had been told at the beginning that Draco would be the one to stand beside him at the end, he would have laughed. Not Draco. And yet, Harry knows that this is how it must be. This unification of purpose.

He looks over at the blond boy . . . no, man beside him. There is a grim resolve set in Draco's jaw and for a moment the light of thick purple morning spreads across his face and he looks terrible and beautiful all at the same time. Draco's eyes slowly turn to meet Harry's.

"I still don't like you, Potter."

"I know, Malfoy."

Their hands clasp and standing side by side they are ready to finish it.

**********************  
 **Neville/Luna** for 

Luna sits on the sofa in the living room with her legs thrown up over the back and her head hanging off the seat. Her cheeks are flushed from the rush of blood and her socked feet wriggle back and forth in the dusty sunlight from the window behind the sofa. Neville sits beside her, reading the paper trying desperately not to ask her "why?" or "what is this?" He is also trying desperately not to tip his head enough so that he can see what she is looking at.

"Wouldn't it be lovely if our furniture was on the ceiling?" She smiles but it looks like a frown from Neville's angle; the downward (upward?) curve of her lips makes him want to lean over and press his finger against them.

He looks up to the ceiling. She asks the strangest things of him, but after all this time he knows just how to answer her. "If that was the case, all our tea would fall out of the cups."

She lifts her head, eyes shining and the way that they glint tells him she was teasing. "That is very smart, love."

**********************  
 **Harry/Hermione**

Harry slinks down the stairs from Ron's bedroom, trainers in hand and wand in his back pocket along with the key to his Gringotts safe. The clock has not yet chimed the hour and he hopes to get out and to the broom shed before it alerts anyone of three in the morning. He plans to leave without them. He doesn't want to risk anyone's lives. So his plan is to disappear, start the hunt and finish it all without anyone.

"We'll follow you," Hermione speaks from the darkness, Harry's hand just barely touching the doorknob. He doesn't look at her.

"You can't. I can't let you." He hears her arms cross and can picture the expression on her face even though his back is to her.

"I don't want you to go without us, Harry." Hermione's tone is firm. Non-forgiving.

She slides her hand into his and clasps her fingers around his palm. Harry looks down to her fingers, knuckles white and he suddenly feels how hard she is holding onto him. She won't let go. And he starts to realise why.

**********************  
 **Draco/Ginny**

Her finger twists around in a single curl of hair -- twist, tug, repeat. Draco watches the red strands flip over her fingertip, but pretends that he isn't watching, that he is doing his transfiguration homework. But the notes on changing a glass of water to a glass of milk isn't distracting enough and the motion of her finger is entirely too distracting.

After study hour he finds her walking toward the library. She doesn't speak when he curls his fingers around her wrist and she doesn't question when he tugs her into an alcove, sitting on a window ledge with her astride his knees. He cranes his neck and touches his lips to hers, but just barely. Enough to cause her to tip her head forward, hair falling forward to brush across his cheeks.

It's times like these that Draco enjoys Ginny's red curls and times like these that he enjoys the fact that she likes him despite his family ties.

**********************  
 **Harry/Hermione**

You think that you could never be more happy than this. And then Hermione says she's taking you to Hawaii. A leaving school gift from her grandmother and she whispers in your ear that she wouldn't want to take anyone but you. This trip is full of firsts. First time on a plane, first time on a surfboard, first time ordering extravagant room-service that costs far too much for far too little food.

Hermione makes you take a hula lesson and you stumble through the steps, but you stumble more because you're watching the way her hips are moving and the way the sun is lighting up the hibiscus flower behind her ear.

"Harry, are you paying attention?" Her hands flow like waves in the gestures of the dance.

And you are. More than anything.

**********************  
 **Harry/Hermione**

Harry crouches behind a wall of packed snow, carefully stockpiling snowballs. Somewhere beyond "no Snowman's land" is the other team. Or at least the other person. . . and he knows that she will resort to any means to come out a winner. This could be because he promised to brush Crookshanks every day for a month, or possibly because she just has a winning spirit. But in order to avoid losing, Harry tries to prepare for battle.

Hermione appears behind Harry, his filched invisibility cloak slithering to the ground in a hushed whisper. The snowball in her hand is loosely packed and when it hits his head, it explodes in a shower of fluffy white. 

"Got you, Potter!" She turns and starts running while he splutters behind her.

Harry forgets his stockpile and gives chase and when he catches her, the kiss is a much warmer and delicious reward.

**********************  
 **Tom Riddle**

Tom will be remembered. He knows this now. His power is great, greater than Dumbledore's and he will go down in history with his name on everyone's lips. Tom will never be forgotten because he has the thirst for memory, for infamy, to stand out in the crowd. Tom is never one to bend to the will of others. He has learned how to be known. How to kill. How to frame others.

Tom's name, perhaps, his birth name, will become lost among the dusty pages of record, but he knows that 'Tom Riddle' is a name no one will care about. His new name, his true name, which will be the one that has the taste of fear.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, no longer.

I am Voldemort.

**********************   
**Zach's thoughts**

Cedric was the first person to welcome Zach to the Hufflepuff table. Shook his hand. Told him, "Well done, mate."

When Cedric's name came out of that goblet, making him not only Hogwart's true champion, but Hufflepuff's vindication, Zach's face never hurt so much from smiling.

When Cedric battled his dragon, Zach clutched his hands so hard in fear that his fingernails cut into his palm. He never showed anyone because he didn't want them to know how frightened he was.

Then there was the maze.

And then Harry came back and Cedric was lying on the ground and Zach doesn't remember much but he does remember the moments after. Sitting with Justin in the dorm. Asking why. Why would this happen? To Cedric? To Hufflepuff? To all of them?

Justin didn't have an answer. Neither did Zach.

**********************  
 **Harry/Draco**

Harry runs through the trees as if the very hounds of Hell are behind him. In a way they are. They've taken everything from him, or rather He has taken everything from him and now without a wand to defend himself or a cloak to hide beneath, Harry runs. He runs until his lungs burn and his calves threaten to seize.

And when they do, he falls to the ground beside a rotten log, muscles cramping and the stitch in his side aching up to his heart.

"Hsst!" 

Harry grabs a rock. It won't protect him against the Killing Curse, but he has to do something.

"Hsst! Potter!" Draco crouches a few feet from where Harry lies on the ground. He holds out a wand. Not Harry's, his own. "I can only distract them so long."

In any other situation, Harry would not take it. But he has no choice and when their eyes meet, he knows that Draco is not an enemy but an ally. He takes the wand, fingers brushing past Draco's in his haste, invigorates himself with a charm and prepares to run again.

"Come with me."

"You know I can't Potter." Draco stands. "Now go."

Harry runs. Fear and Survival aren't the only things on his mind this time. There is also regret.

**********************  
 **George/Angelina**

"Vanilla cherry chip." Angelina perches on a chair in George's kitchen. She licks her lips and smiles at him. "You're not being very challenging, Weasley. I may be blind but I'm not stupid."

A throaty laugh carries across to her from near where she knows his fridge to be. Spoon clinks against bowl and Angelina wriggles just slightly, waiting. She feels George move around the centre island and sit on the chair beside her and there are things that she notices before he even speaks. The lingering scent of soap. The way he breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth and how his breathing sounds different when half of his mouth is curled up in a grin like it is now.

"Okay. This one." 

A spoon touches her lips and she closes her mouth around the ice-cream, letting it melt on her tongue. Toffee. Chocolate. Caramel. Angie opens her mouth to label the dessert, but suddenly he's kissing her, deep, hard, fingers tangled in her hair. Ice-cream? What ice-cream? All she can taste is him.

**********************  
 **Hermione Granger**

"Are you almost done, Hermione? We're leaving in ten minutes." Ron calls from the bottom of the stairs.

"I'll be right down." She folds the last pair of socks and tucks them into her suitcase and tries to ignore the way her hands are shaking.

They leave today for their search. Harry's search. Harry's fight. And yet it isn't just Harry's fight and when she looks around her bedroom, seeing the little achievement trophies from primary school, Hermione wonders if she'll ever be home again. She wonders if this will be the end of it all and if this will be the last time she passes her fingers over the stuffed octopus on her bed or the last time she will sneakily filch candy from her hiding spot under the bottom drawer of her dresser.

Hermione doesn't want to admit it, but she's terrified to follow Harry on this (possibly) last adventure. But she does because she's his friend. Because she knows he can't do it alone and because she knows that he needs both her and Ron to be strong for him.

So she zips up her suitcase and pretends to be strong.

**********************  
 **Draco/Hermione**

It started with a late night potions project and although Draco would never admit it, even under torture, he had grown to appreciate working with Hermione. It was a welcome change to the blank looks he would get from Nott when he tried to discuss the difference between engorging potion and enlarging potions. But Draco had to watch himself and not give away any hint of remotely enjoying these sessions.

"Those roots are too big." He looked up from his notes to watch her slice the pieces of ginger.

"No they're not. They're exactly three-quarters of an inch wide."

Draco moved around from his seat to lean over her work. He took the ginger and sliced it, holding it up against hers. The difference was enormous for him, but for the average eye, next to nothing. And when he looked at her, he saw why she was making such a grievous error. Up close he could see the circles under her eyes.

"Why aren't you sleeping?"

Hermione pushed away from him, stooped over and began packing her bag. "I get enough sleep, Malfoy." Her tone belied her words. She looked over at him. "You can mind your own business."

He stopped her at the door. Why? He didn't know. Concern? Maybe. He tried to tell himself it was because he didn't want her to screw up on their project. Perhaps he was curious as to what was causing this depravation in her life. In any case when his fingers circled around her arm and held her back . . . He knew there was something else happening.

And if that didn't convince him that everything was changing, the kiss certainly did.

**********************  
 **James/Lily**

Lily sits in the sitting room, Harry in her arms and the two of them look up at the Christmas tree. Harry's first Christmas and she couldn't imagine anything more perfect than the wide-eyed blinking of her son. She nuzzles the top of his head, baby curls sticking every which way, definitely James' hair. Harry reaches for one of the fairy lights. A larger palm spreads across the small of her back and she feels a warm kiss being pressed to the back of her neck.

"Perfect, eh Evans?" 

With the way he's kissing her neck, she knows he's not talking about the tree. Lily shakes her head, kisses Harry on the cheek and lets him play with the soft gold chain around her neck. "We've been married how long? When are you going to stop calling me Evans?"

It's an old question. She knows the answer. But she asks anyway. Why? Because she just loves to hear his voice as he explains it.

**********************  
TITLE: Escaping  
CHALLENGE: Write a Harry Potter drabble inspired by the following haiku by Uejima Onitsura:  
 _"I know well_  
That the June rains  
Just fall."  
NOTES: Written for the Term 8 Drabble Contest #1 at **quills_elite** , Third Place Winner. Post HBP

***

He's home from Hogwarts. Dumbledore gone. Harry not returning. And Neville can hear Gran putter about the sitting room, jostling teacups and plates, doing her best not to break apart.

She does, though. When she thinks he can't hear her. Quiet sobs through thin walls and floors.

When that happens, Neville climbs out his window and down the lattice, careful not to crush Gran's flowers, to avoid being drawn into the sadness.

It's raining tonight. It rains often. Dark clouds that make one believe that summer is only imaginary.

No tears this time. Neville lets the rain do the work...

**********************  
TITLE: Erised Revealed  
CHALLENGE: write a drabble about an event or moment that happened in canon from the point of view of a Hogwarts professor or staff member. Retell a moment from the series that we have previously only seen through Harry's eyes.  
NOTES: Written for the **quills_elite** 2nd drabble contest of term 8. First place entry. I took my moment from Book One. ((written before knowing about Grindlewald. Can be taken as Arianna)

***

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?"

Albus' eyes skimmed over the crown of Harry's head. The mirror behind the young boy, grown so much since the first time Albus had clapped eyes on him, shimmered briefly as images tucked themselves into place. A hand. A gentle smile. A sparkle that hinted at the corner of an eye. Her. With a schooled expression, Albus regarded Harry; a smile tickled the edges of his lips.

"I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks."

Her image vanished from the mirror as quickly as it had arrived.

**********************  
 **Tonks and Moody. An argument, a kitten and a pair of scissors.**

"Auror Tonks, get that bloody thing out of the office or I'm going to do it for you!"

Tonks crawled under the desk to scoop the mewling kitten out from beneath Moody's chair. Its tiny paws curled around a pair of scissors; she glared up through the surface of the desk and made a face. Wretched man couldn't even warm up to something as adorable as Missy Moomoo. He stomped his foot, grumbled something about pulling faces will only get her more paperwork and a lap around the training yard. Tonks scuttled out from beneath the desk clutching the wriggling body.

"I can't leave her at home, Sir," she protested and untangled the scissors from Missy Moomoo's paws. "She's just a baby."

"She doesn't belong in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement!"

"Rollins has a guinea pig!" Her hair turned red.

"Rollins doesn't let it climb under my chair and steal my scissors!"

Tonks pressed her lips together and set the kitten down on her own desk. She stomped out of the office to find a cardboard box. What she missed was careful glance that Moody made around the room. And the way he dangled a string for Missy Moomoo to play with.

**********************  
 **Hermione/Parvati. Quill, Earring, Orange (colour)**

Hermione taps her quill against the parchment she's using to take notes. Parvati sits across the room, knife in hand and paring slices of nectarine off the pit. Hermione can't help herself and watches the orange flesh move from the blade to Parvati's mouth, white teeth closing over the fruit. No sound. She imagines the flavour of it. Wondering if it's ripe and sweet or slightly tart. They don't speak. Parvati knows not to bother Hermione while there are textbooks open. Hermione just doesn't know what she could say that wouldn't come across as completely mad.

The text on her lap sticks to Hermione's bare thighs. The room is thick with silence and stagnant air and the nectarine between them. Concentration is lost.

A twinkle of light dances across the page. Hermione follows it with her quill and steals another glance at Parvati. Sunlight has caught in the facets of the other girl's pink earring. Parvati quietly offers a slice of fruit. Hermione knows that Parvati knows about the watching. The staring. It happens too often.

Pink tickles the apples of Hermione's cheeks. She can't see it. But the heat is there.

She clears her throat and the "Yes please" comes out as a squeak.

**********************  
 **McGonagall. Sorting, Gold, Candles.**

For far too many years you've done this. Before it was always the same. Always with candles floating above your head. Always with the tiny (they're getting tinier every year!) first years quaking before the rest of the school.

But this is the first time you've not held that scroll. Their names have not tumbled from your lips and the hat has hasn't wriggled between your fingers. Someone else calls them forth. You don't look to the head table to see that twinkle - that golden sparkle in Albus' eyes.

And when the Sorting is over you're the one who stands, the one who raises a goblet.

"New student. I am your Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall. Welcome to Hogwarts..."

**********************  
 **Harry/Hermione - hot, summer, shade**

Hermione sits at the base of a large oak, an ice cube between her thumb and index finger. She slides it down the column of her neck trying to do something to keep herself cool. Even in the shade, she can't avoid the summer. Its sticky and unending heat. She prays for rain or nighttime or for god's sake, even snow!

How she misses winter.

"Hot?" Harry sits beside her. She almost protests his presence because she can feel his body heat radiating across the bit of space between them. "Here. This might help."

But then. Then he leans closer.

And blows softly across the wet trail left by the ice-cube.

**********************  
 **Sirius/Harry: Photograph, Opera, Blanket**

***

Sirius curls beneath the ratty blanket, and shivers against the cold stone of his cell. In his hand is a crumpled clipping from some newspaper. It could be the prophet. Possibly something else. But there's Harry's photograph. Smiling back. Though the smile looks forced. But it's a smile nevertheless.

At him.

Sirius runs his finger over the apple of Harry's cheek. He'd be, what, twelve?

The ink of the clipping has since faded. Sirius doesn't know where Harry is or who the pretty blonde man is standing next to him. But He loves to see how Harry's grown. Turning slowly into the man that James will never see.

These times are harder. When Sirius almost finds happiness. And then the operatic moaning of the Dementors start to pull the light away.

At least he has the photograph.

At least he has his Harry.

**********************  
 **Terry/Susan -- Terry's Bed, Pillows, Forts**

It had started out as joke. A late night, many glasses of wine and Susan cheerfully boasting her prowess at building pillow forts when she attended school. With a laugh Terry had dragged her off to his bedroom and challenged her to build one on the expanse of king-size.

Amazingly enough, despite the wobbles, she'd done it.

Rather impressive, Terry'd thought as they stretched out carefully beneath what she declared to be the portcullis. He turned on his side to ask her more about it.

Instead he found her asleep, curled on her side with her arm pinned beneath her head. Understandable. The hours she's been pulling at the Ministry coupled with the amount of wine they'd consumed that night. Terry reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Then slid out from beneath the tower of pillows, setting charms to keep them from toppling down on her. Then wandered out to the sofa to spend the night.


	7. You'll Always be my Friend First - Anthony Goldstein/Morag Macdougall

**Title:** You'll Always Be My Friend First  
 **Pairings:** Anthony Goldstein/Morag Macdougall  
 **Summary:** Seven Glimpses over Seven years  
 **First year**

Anthony gets off the train with a few other wide-eyed eleven year olds and shuffles towards an enormous man in an equally enormous coat. His heart beats a steady panic in his throat. What if they don’t like him? What if they say a little Jewish boy isn’t allowed? What if he forgot his supplies? He’s close to hyperventilation now, not that anyone around him notices. He’s breathing quietly. The first years are directed toward small boats and everyone clambers to sit with people that they met on the train. But Anthony didn’t meet anyone on the train. He spent the ride studying a small Hebrew text that his father gave him.

“Can I sit with you?” A nervous blonde stands beside him and clutches a notebook in her hands, twisting the cover.

Anthony nods and helps her into the small boat. When it sets off with the rest of them, he places his hand over the gold star beneath his shirt collar. The girl beside him twists her hair around her finger and looks back to the dock they just left as though she wants to leap out of the boat and swim away.

“It’ll be okay. My dad says this is a good school.” He holds out his hand to her. “I’m Anthony Goldstein.”

She clasps his hand. Her palm is warm and dry. “Morag. Morag Macdougal.”

**Second year**

“Poor Mrs Norris,” Morag perches on the edge of the armchair, hands outstretched to the fireplace. Her fingernails are painted pink.

“The headmaster said she’s not dead.” Anthony turns the page in his charms textbook and writes notes on duelling charms. “Professor Sprout will use our Mandrakes to fix her up good.” He pauses in his notes and looks up without lifting his head. Morag’s nose has crinkled like it does when she’s annoyed. No. He’s mistaken. This nose is her thoughtful nose.

“It just seems so bad for her. Imagine being stuck like that for God knows how long. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

Anthony smiles. Even a mangy cat like Mrs. Norris gets Morag’s compassion.

**Third year**

Anthony is getting too tall. His mum says it’s from his father’s side of the family. Soon he’ll have to use lengthening charms on his trouser legs, they’ve begun to flap about his ankles and the snow at Hogsmeade is slipping into the edge of shoes.

Morag’s buying Pepper Imps and Ice Mice and Anthony is watching a wanted poster of Sirius Black snarl on the side of a building. He misses his family and knows that he won’t be joining them for the Passover meal this year. Easter break and Passover don’t match up.

“I got you a peppermint stick.” Morag hops into the snow beside him.

He takes it gratefully and asks her if she’d maybe help him organise a small Passover for him and the two students in Hufflepuff he spends the Sabbath with.

**Fourth Year**

Anthony’s dancing with Padma Patil. She’s angry about Ron Weasley and something he did or didn’t do. Anthony tries to listen but all he can think about is the fact that Morag is dancing with some Slytherin seventh year. He can just barely make out her upswept hair over the slender shoulders of her date. Anthony doesn’t like where that bloke has his hands. It makes his stomach feel strange. Morag’s one of his best friends and he’s worried.

Or so he tells himself.

Padma tilts her head and looks to where he’s looking.

She groans and throws up her hands. “Not another one!”

**Fifth year**

“Come on.”

Anthony pulls Morag along. She holds her hand over her eyes. They are in the middle of OWL testing and it’s close to midnight. Any other time and Anthony would have insisted that they go to bed and rest before the Transfiguration OWL, but instead he’s taking Morag to the kitchens.

They make it inside without being caught and Anthony helps her sit down. He brings out a carton of ice cream and two spoons. They finish the entire thing.

And their stomachs ache through the whole test.

**Sixth year**

She plays chess in the common room on Tuesdays with Terry Boot. Thoroughly kicking his arse because she’s good at chess that way. Anthony doesn’t play against her anymore for that very reason, but Terry is a glutton for punishment. But he likes watching her.

What he doesn’t like is that she cut her hair short over the summer. It just tickles her ears now and although it makes her neck look longer, he liked how it used to hang loose over her back. But he doesn’t tell her that because that would defeat the purpose of being her friend.

“Checkmate!” She crosses her arms triumphantly.

Anthony chuckles at the baffled expression on Terry’s face and he knows they’ll be at it again next week.

Like clockwork.

**Seventh year**

He opens his eyes and spots her sleeping next to his hospital cot. The gash above her eyebrow is gone and all that remains is a white mark that will fade with her next magical treatment. The battle is over. They’ve not won, but she’s alright.

Anthony fingers the star around his neck and says a little prayer in thanks.

For more than one thing.


	8. Short things written in 2007

**Title:** Little Lamb  
**Rating:** PG-13ish - R-ish  
**Notes:** Written for a **hogwarts_elite** fiction challenge. Task was to write someone using a penseive that we had not seen using one before.

_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis._

Ginny, my sacrificial little lamb. I knew you once. Knew you better than you knew yourself and I can feel those memories inside of me. I created you, little lamb. The twist inside of you is my own doing and I am pleased with the outcome. You are not the same carefree little innocent making daisy chains and snow angels anymore.

Potter was no more intelligent than that fool of a mentor of his, Dumbledore. Blind enough to miss the fact that I would never allow for there to not be a back up plan. The diary came back to me and I gleaned from its ink-soaked pages, your thoughts. Your words. Your terrible secrets.

I am your Tom. Always your Tom.

The memories inside of me have awoken and I watch them tumble and bend around the wisps of destruction deep within this cavernous pensieve. White memories of shame and black memories of triumph. Red memories of my damnable Muggle father and his cursed Muggle name. The name that you loved. And soft rose memories of you. Little beams of smiles and a forged friendship between a young man who perhaps loved the idea of you, so fresh, so new to him. 

He, rather I, began the tapestry of our story.

Little Ginny, my lamb. So tender and smooth. Not yet roughened by the anger of war. You will always remain the same to me. These are my sacred memories.

They do not know that you bring peace to my thoughts and a delicious ease of concentration to my plans. I savour our moments, dipping my fingers into our connection and swirling around the cloudy memories of that long year. That year when you were mine and I was yours and there was nothing separating us but a page and a smear of ink.

On your fingertips, little lamb. Against your throat. A mark to remember me by even when you scrubbed the spot raw, you could still feel my breath as I whispered across your ear.

I can see you, replay you in the swirl of this bowl, marching through the corridors, holding me -- my diary -- close to your tiny bosom. Didn't you know? Your thoughts were my thoughts and Potter may have thought he destroyed me inside these pages but he did not. And I can hear your heartbeat like a flutter of eyelashes against the leather-bound pages.

_Tom, I think I'm losing my mind._

You were losing your mind. But that was part of the process. Imprinting yourself on me as I was on you.

_Tom, I can't remember things._

It mattered not, little Ginny.

A stain of a memory still clings to your mind and I can see it in your eyes when you are lucid and I have already drawn those sinfully wicked thoughts from your mind to keep in my collection. You remember me and the way I made you feel. You remember my friendship. You remember my power. What you don't remember is yourself. They broke you looking for him. You should have known that being with Potter would only lead to your downfall. I would have been your salvation.

Your Tom.

**************

**Title:** Distraction (Ginny/Victoria)  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Notes:** Written for a **hogwarts_elite** drabble contest. Task was to write about voiceless charms during a class.

"I can't do it," you say, staring at the feather you're supposed levitate without speaking, still thinking it was a mistake to ask Ginny Weasley to be your partner for this class.

She's always been this enormous distraction with her tangled hair and wistful smiles.

"Just concentrate Victoria. Like this." Ginny leans close and all you hear is her breath. In softly through her mouth and out gently through her nose. She shows you again, lifting the feather into the air without a sound.

If Potter hadn't left her behind, you wouldn't have this distraction.

**************

Title: Using Metaphor to Define Interregnum (Featuring Luna)  
**Rating:** G  
Notes: Third place winner for a **hogwarts_elite** drabble contest. Prompt: INTERREGNUM, meaning any breach of continuity in an order; a lapse or interval in a continuity.

 

Luna never likes the idea of having your ducks in a row. To be accurate one would have to measure all the ducks in all manner of ways so that they are put in a correct line-up. Then there are the categories. Smallest to largest? By colour? Feathers -- either too many or too few.

And then what happens when your ducks aren't in the correct order?

Luna feels that having a saying in the English language where there are too many variables is unsuitable. So she refuses to like it.

Because it's not a logical use of her time.

**************

**Prompt:** Barty Crouch Jr once considered a career in mediwizardry.

Barty sits on the floor of his cell and traces his fingertip over the long scabby marks on his arms. He knows about cellular reproduction - more than one might think. He knows about how scabs are the callous protection of new skin as it knits together to close a wound. He knows that they're a natural renewal.

And despite everything he's been taught, he still picks them off and watches the torn and damaged skin beneath bleed again.

Circulation is another of Barty's hobbies. You see, he once considered a career in mediwizardry and this caught the Dark Lord's eye. Who better to annihilate an opponent than one who knew just how to place a slicing charm to hit all major arteries?

Barty put himself to good use.

Perhaps he wasn't a loss after all.

**************

**Prompt:** Draco &Pansy's daughter meets Ron&Hermione's son  
**AN:** Written prior to DH being released. Has only been edited for names.

A child is a mixture of its parents and Cecily Malfoy was no different. Her grey eyes held the same cold, steely look that belonged to her father and her grandfather. Her nose had the same upturn as her mother's nose; one might call it pug-like.

The difference between Cecily and her parents was her upbringing. Pansy and Draco spent far too much time abroad with little care to who raised their less-than-precious daughter.

Cecily was seven when she met Hugo Weasley who could never keep his hair combed properly and seemed to be ginormous compared to all the other seven year olds. How on earth does one get that tall?

"My mum and dad are magical and I'm going to be just like them and you know my dad plays for the Cannons and one day I'm going to play for the Cannons just like my dad. Did you know that my mum and dad are best friends with Harry Potter? Very best friends. They're almost as famous as him. He's like my uncle. Only not really. I think I can do spells already. Did you know --"

Cecily cut Hugo off with a rough slap to the face. He charged off across the playground in tears. She returned to her nanny, a scowl on her tiny face.

Wizard boys shouldn't make little squib girls feel this bad.

**************

**Rough Landings - Susan Bones centric**

The problem with travelling by portkey is that even the purest of pureblood wizards and witches, who have been doing it for years, have their rough landings. Now Susan Bones wasn't your average pureblood witch. There were a number of Muggle stains in her background. That, including their staunch support of Albus Dumbledore (and later, Harry Potter), had put the Bones' in a dangerous spotlight and the Dark Lord had practically wiped her entire family out.

But blood status aside, Susan was one of those witches that no matter how often she used a portkey, she could only count the number of times she landed on her feet (instead of her arse) on one hand.

China was, of course, no exception.

The shower in the small hotel was a sad excuse for a plumbing fixture. Susan let the water run for a bit to heat up and, shucking her towel, she turned to examine her posterior. The purpled bruise was only just now starting to lighten to a rather unattractive shade of yellowish-green and it had already been a week since she'd arrived in Beijing. The landing had been spectacular though. One to write home about. 

Except Susan didn't write home.

There was to be no contact.

~*~

_The light in the kitchen was the only illumination in the house. Susan stood in the darkness listening to her parents squabble. She hated it when they fought. And more and more often it was over the subject of her._

_"If Edgar had had the chance, he would have made the kids leave." Susan's father curled his rough hands around a mug. "I've already lost him and Amelia. You know they're going to try for us next. We have to send her away."_

_"But She's our baby." Susan's mum was crying. Tears were no stranger to the Bones' house as of late. "For how long?"_

_"I don't know. But I want her as far away as possible."_

~*~

After her shower, which had consisted of either too hot or too cold water and soap in her eyes, Susan went back to her room and dug through the few purchases she had made while visiting the Xiushui Market. Unfamiliar with the concept of haggling for purchases, Susan probably paid far too much for the red qípáo, but she couldn't manage to take her eyes off it and unnerved by the quick unfamiliar language, Susan had thrust a fistful of yuan at the old woman selling the dresses and gone back to the hotel.

"Oi Susie!" A loud hammering thump on her door caused Susan to nearly jump out the window. "We're takin' a key to the Quong Po Dragon Reserve to see them feed the Fireballs! Wanna come?"

Susan thought about it for a moment. Several moments to be precise. She'd not spoken much with the other residents since arriving. Most were from North America, here on a scholarship to study potions or healing arts. Something their Ministries liked to do. The voice on the other side of the door belonged to such a person. His father was a wand manufacturer in California and he'd grown up with little to no fear of Voldemort or the Dark Mark being above his house.

Looking down at herself, Susan smoothed her hands over the silk of her dress. She ought to change and go with them. She ought to make friends. She ought to stop thinking that she'd be going back to England tomorrow.

She ought to unpack her things from the suitcase she'd brought.

But the words drifting up from her lungs changed somewhere in the back of her throat. "No, thank you, Kyle. I'm just going to head out… Perhaps another time?"

He didn't answer. She knew he wouldn't. She'd been giving them "no" since arriving, so why would he make a second attempt?

~*~

_"Dad, I don't want to go," said Susan, arms crossed and feet firmly planted. If she could have, she would have dug her heels literally into the floorboards of the kitchen. "I won't. I promised… I promised them when I joined Dumbledore's Army that I'd stick it through. These are my friends. You can't make me go!"_

_Her mother and father exchanged helpless looks. Both parents were Ravenclaw to the core and had absolutely no idea how to understand or comprehend such a Hufflepuff daughter and her unwavering dedication to people she wasn't related to. The logic of it all seemed to baffle them. Their little badger was far too stubborn for her own good. Portkey reservations sat silent and taunting on the worn oak table._

_Susan's father let out a heavy sigh. The kind of sigh that comes from a man who has lost too much already. "Susan . . . we're not going to make you. But we are going to beg of you. Please don't follow in my sister's footsteps. Or my brother's."_

_"It wouldn't be for too long, honey."_

_How wrong Susan's mother was._

~*~

Three months into her stay, Susan started to notice a few things. That she knew what some of the more disreputable men were talking about when they held up a camera and said "Ke yi zhao nin ma?" And she knew to say no, that she didn't want her picture taken. Susan noticed that she'd started to develop favourite places to sit. On a bench in the middle of the Long Corridor at the Summer Palace was one of them.

Three months into her stay, Susan found that the British Embassy was glad to have a national to answer phones and hired her so fast that Susan thought perhaps someone had been pulling some strings. This "temporary travel" was soon becoming less temporary and more permanent.

Three months into her stay, Susan found that in a city of fourteen million people, she was still lonely.

She held a book butterflied between her fingers and settled on the bench pretending to read while actually watching tour groups go by and listen to the stories that the guides told the muggles, red faced and snapping pictures all with the expected "ooo's" and "ahh's."

"And this painting depicts the tale of the Peach-Blossom Land. The story is set during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It tells the story of a fisherman who discovers a secluded valley located on the other side of a narrow cave. The inhabitants of the valley were the descendants of war refugees from the times of the Qin Dynasty. They had lived in this utopia untroubled by the further course of history in peace and harmony. The fisherman returned home to tell the story, but the idyllic valley could never be found again…."

A yellow umbrella waved the group of tourists along.

Susan had to smile and shake her head. There was just a tiny snippet of information missing in all of that. That being that the fisherman had been a muggle and the inhabitants of the Peach-Blossom valley were wizards and witches. And they had just put up a stronger Muggle repellent charm to keep their valley hidden.

It was a nice place. They made good Jiaozi.

~*~

_"I won't know anyone." Susan folded the last of her jumpers, shrank them and placed them neatly in her suitcase._

_"The hotel we've found for you is completely magical," said Susan's mum as she sat on the edge of the bed, folding socks. "They take in borders for magical studies. You'll make friends in no time. You've always had that ability."_

_Susan pressed her lips together. The argument between her and her parents had been epic. But in the end, she'd agreed to spend a few months away. Just to be safe and to put their minds at ease. Susan gave them six months. She felt it was generous. If You Know Who was too powerful, she'd stay longer, but if her family was in no more danger, she'd return._

_"I'll miss you, Susan." Hands shook and the basket of socks fell to the floor._

_That's when Susan noticed how sad her mother was. And how scared._

~*~

Checking her watch, Susan swore softly. She'd spent too much time lollygagging with her novel and not enough time getting to work. She'd have to apparate to make it there on time.

Launching herself from the bench in her haste to leave was not one of Susan's better ideas. Especially in a crowded world heritage site in one of the largest cities in the world. _Especially_ when she should have noticed the very tall young man standing directly in her path.

The pair of them went sprawling.

"Dui bu qi. Dui bu qi." The words fell from her lips as Susan made a grab for her novel before it was trampled by yet another umbrella-carrying tour guide walking backwards.

"No no, it's entirely my fault." He reached out to help her stand.

The voice was English. Scratch that, the voice was _British_. And to top it off, the voice had understood her apology.

 

**************

**TITLE:** The King's English  
**WORD COUNT:** ~ 1380  
_1611_

Elladora Sedgewyck had been the village of Yeardsley's midwife for as many years as she'd been out of Hogwarts. Her natural talent with the process of birth and feminine healing was widely known that families from nearby Taxal and Whaley would travel to see her so that their children would be born healthy.

For Elladora, it was not difficult work and the few challenges that cropped up made it worth her while. She loved the challenge and worked very hard to do her job well. Occasionally a mother would present with a difficult problem, a breech or unexplained bleeding, but she'd not lost a mother or a child yet.

The young woman lying on the birthing bed was heavy and very near the end of her term. There had been a scare earlier in the pregnancy and when she got to the eighth month, Elladora had confined her to the bed where she'd remained for the last nearly seven weeks. It was either that or risk losing both mother and babe, which Elladora was stubbornly not going to allow to happen.

Over the fire, goldfish-like droplets bounced out of the cauldron in a joyous dance. The midwife knew that _Felix Felicis_ was used for many different situations, but it had become her trademark and she liked to think that the potion was leaping in anticipation of the new life to come. The wives of Yeardsley said nothing to their husbands of the methods that Elladora used.

Most of the time, she didn't rely on the potion. But for new mothers it worked well to give them confidence that they could walk the path that so many other women had walked since the beginning of time. As she told them often, letting a drop of potion fall onto their tongues, they were not the first woman to squeeze a babe from out between their legs and they were certainly not going to be the last.

There was a pounding on the door. Elladora let out an oath. The young woman's husband had been plaguing her threshold for two days now. Had she not been against hexing Muggles, she would have set his trousers aflame long ago.

"Samuel Hodgkins, I told you to come when I've sent for you. Your wife has not popped yet and she won't until at least tomorrow or the next day." Elladora scolded through the heavy oak door.

"It's Elias, Ella." The voice on the other side spoke through the cracks in the planks.

Casting a quick glance over her shoulder at her patient, she let her long-time friend Elias Podmore into her home. The towheaded wizard stepped across the threshold with a parcel tucked tightly under his arm. Two years her senior the older man had been a Ravenclaw to her Hufflepuff. Their love of reading, a strange quality in a woman, even one who was being educated at one of the finest wizarding schools in Europe, had brought them down a similar path.

"Did you get it?" she asked quickly, lowering her voice below the bubble of the cauldron.

"One copy for you and one copy for the school." 

Elias began undoing the cloth wrappings. Indeed in his parcel were two heavy tomes. The leather was a dark shade of brown and carefully tooled. Hours upon hours of work had gone into making this book. Elladora would add it to the others she kept hidden in the rafters of her small cottage. She ran her fingertips over the lettering on the cover. _King James Bible_. News of its publication had been travelling up and down the countryside for weeks.

"Thank you, Elias," she breathed softly.

"May I stay? We can read it together."

Elladora shook her head. "There's so much to do for Catherine right now. I expect her pains to start any day now. Perhaps in a week you could come back? You know how I like discussing these sorts of things with you."

"Of course." Elias leaned forward just a brief moment as though he meant to place a kiss on her cheek, but then remembered himself and gave her a brisk nod before turning and leaving as quickly as he had come.

She gave the spot where he had been standing a rueful smile. That man would never gather up enough courage to do more than be her friend unless she took a broom and whacked him upside of his head.

After a few moments of checking on Catherine, who was asleep finally after a long period of shooting back pains, Elladora decided to have a look at this English language Bible. Now she wasn't naïve to the beliefs of the Christians in her village. Elladora attended services weekly at the small stone church along with every other member of the parish. She yearned to understand how Muggles could put their faith in such a supreme force. It both baffled and amazed her.

And sometimes scared her.

She knew the stories of the bible. Solomon and David and the crucifixion. She understood the plight of the Israelites and their deliverer.

She'd heard the words in Latin time and time again. This time the story was laid out before her in English. It was fascinating that such a book could inspire tremendous love and tremendous hate. How such a book could spur on things such as the Inquisition in Spain. Where torture and pain brought about the downfall of so many.

And innocent Muggles being branded as witches because some imbecile decided that the _Malleus Maleficarum_ , _The Witch Hammer_ , was an accurate tool to tell one person from another. A foolish task that only served to kill rather than expose.

Elladora found herself in Exodus as she turned pages. And when she got to twenty-two, she paused. Some of her favourite rules were in this section. Ones she wished were followed. 

_And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife._

Such was the ruination of many a woman who had crossed through Elladora's threshold. Men with silver tongues who disappeared into the night once breaking more than just a thread of trust.

She paused. Her eyes falling on the passage below. 

_Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live._

It wasn't the first time she'd heard of those words. It was the first time she'd seen them written in the King's English.

A soft disparaging sigh escaped from Elladora's throat and she closed the thick book, taking it and a small stub of a candle up into the attic where she kept her tomes from Hogwarts along with her own copy of _Malleus Maleficarum_. She would have to make a decision because with the word of the Muggle's religion becoming more accessible to the common people, things were bound to get more terrible before they got better.

But now was not the time.

Closing up the attic, Elladora returned to Catherine's bedside and rolled out a pallet she had left on the floor. The baby would be born soon. Samuel's young wife would be successful and the family would praise Elladora for her skill as a midwife. No one would speak of the dancing golden potion or how confident Catherine will have felt during the entire process.

Years down the road, the townsfolk of Yeardsley, Taxal and Whaley would bemoan the fact that their most famous of midwives had simply vanished one winter's night. She never gave word where she was going or if she would ever return. They would never know that her potions were truly magical, that she was a witch, that her children and their children would be sworn to secrecy as the governing powers decided to conceal their world from the Muggle's forever.

No, the townsfolk would pass by her old cottage, but not step inside in the hopes that she would return. They would tell stories about how lucky they had been to have such a midwife. How sad they were that she was gone. How difficult things were now. How mothers and babies were lost. 

Such was life and death. 

Elladora Sedgewyck would be no longer part of the Muggle aspect of those two things.

And nor would the rest of her world.


	9. Writings and scribbles of 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabbles and ficlits and unfinished chaptered stories from 2009

**Title:** Sorry  
 **15Pairings Theme:** 2\. Secret sin  
 **Pairing:** Harry/Hermione  
 **Rating:** R  
 **Wordcount:** 970

She's crying again.

Sometimes he hates this tent and its thin walls. And sometimes he hates Ron for leaving. He's so angry and sometimes Harry hates her for staying. He didn't ask for her to stay. He didn't ask for Ron to leave. He didn't ask for Hagrid to come out to that shack in the middle of fucking nowhere to whisk him off to a life of magic and adventure and death.

She's crying again.

He tries to plug his ears, but its so heart wrenching that he can't help himself and he gets out of bed and goes to where she's sitting outside, head buried in her arms, vaguely trying to hold herself together. Except she can't. He can't either. They're a triangle without that third piece. They're just an angle. Acute and sharp. And she is a disaster without him. Just as Harry is a disaster.

He's always been a disaster it seems.

Except she isn't sharp or angular. She's soft. His arms go around her and she's soft. He strokes her back, feeling those hitches of breath and she's soft. Soft and vulnerable and he wishes he could mend her broken heart.

"I'm sorry," she whimpers, scrunching up his jumper in her hands, her nose buried against his sternum.

"Don't be sorry."

"It just comes... And comes and it comes and it doesn't seem to stop and I hurt everywhere."

"I know. I miss him too." He kisses the crown of her head.

She's crying again. And he doesn't know what to do with himself. He hates when she cries. To be honest? He hates when they all cry. The tears get to him in a strange way and all he wants to do is somehow make it better and make them forget and make them feel like they aren't alone in the world. She's crying again.

He hates Ron for leaving her so broken like this.

"Shhh..." Somehow he is rocking her. "It's just one of those things. He'll get over himself."

Harry doesn't know if he believes these things, but he tells her all the soothing phrases he can think of. It'll get better. We can do this without him. He'll come back. He always comes around. Remember he was in such a strop over the Goblet? And Krum? He'll get over it. It's all nonsense and things that Harry doesn't necessarily trust will come true.

There's a moment in amongst all of it where she goes quite still. He's relieved because at least she isn't crying anymore. All he can feel is her hands clenching and unclenching the front of his jumper and the heady smell of her which is strange and a bit unwashed and should be repulsive but is rather pleasing. He tries to release her, but his arms won't listen to his brain and his brain is starting to think that this isn't so bad because she's soft and she's warm and Ron left and they're all alone.

There are tears on her cheeks when he kisses her on the lips. Leftovers from her fit only moments before.

She is not his!

"I'm sorry," he says, dropping his arms and inching away.

Her finger catches beneath his chin and turns his face to look at her. "Don't be sorry."

It's wrong what they're doing. Harry knows it's wrong. He's almost positive that she knows it's wrong too but they don't stop. He takes her into the tent and they don't stop. It's them trying to find a way not to be unstable with the absence of Ron. And that is a huge wall between them. They don't talk. It's just lips and tongues and frantic hands and pushing and touching and heavy breaths that fog the air because neither one of them had the sense to light a fire.

They fuck.

It's crude just like the word. They're saving the idea of 'making love' for people that they love. Not that they don't love each other, but it's so very different what he has with her. He's said before that she's like a sister to him because that's the only analogy that he can come up with without sounding strange. She is his soul mate. His anima. Nothing like Ginny, who is his heart. This woman. This woman now. She is his mind. So he calls her his sister because he doesn't know how else to express it. Except he'd never touch a sister like this and he highly doubted that a sister would do that to him with her tongue.

It's raw. Raw and needy. And co-dependant and wrong and awkwardly satisfying.

He hates Ron for leaving because this is what it has come down to.

In the morning they don't talk about it. They don't talk about it because talking about it makes it more real than it actually was. He glances at her throughout the day and with the way she is acting and throwing herself into the book she's got or the dishes or whatever task she's listed in her head as Needing To Be Done Today... he's starting to wonder if it actually did happen or perhaps it was just one of those dreams.

She cries again at night.

And he soothes her.

And they start the cycle all over again. I'm sorry. Don't be sorry. Just make it all go away.

A long, long time from now they will occasionally remember these moments. It will bring blushes to their faces and they'll shrug off the questions with flippant waves and exchange looks that no one will ever understand. It's a secret you see. One they will carry forever because they crossed a line that was somewhat hazy to begin with. A line that was broken by close quarters and tears and warmth and softness.

***********

**Title:** Becoming Charlie  
 **15Pairings Theme:** 2\. Lady Killer  
 **Pairing:** Charlie/Narcissa  
 **Rating** Hard R (I think)  
 **Wordcount** 1234

_October 1992_

Smoke hung in a hazy cloud somewhere just below the lamps in the dim pub he was sitting in. Some would say licking his wounds; Charlie would call it angrily contemplating what life would be like as a monk. There'd been absolutely no warning. Meaghean had gone home for the summer promising kisses, and more (Charlie always liked the 'more'), when she returned in the fall. Except it had all been a lie. She'd arrived back at in Romania with a ring on her finger and a promise to another. Another!

Fuck.

He hated how he felt. Hated that she'd turned him into this man. Constantly thinking about her and wishing things had been different. It was awful. He just needed to find a distraction. Something that wouldn't bring his thoughts back to her dark, Welsh looks and sparkling eyes. Something that was the complete opposite of Meaghean because he couldn't stand how weepy and pathetic he'd become.

The guys back at the camp would start to notice soon.

She stepped into the pub with a look of utter disgust on her face as if she had just stepped on something foul. Charlie noticed her. There wasn't a man in the room that didn't. Mostly because it was clear from the top of her elegant coif to the tips of her designer shoes that she did not belong in this rough and tumble establishment. Eyes followed her everywhere. Whispers.

She glowed. Everything about her was white or pale. Her skin. Her hair. The clothes on her body. And it was a body to be admired. Flat stomach, slightly flared hips. The kind of hips that were good for holding and pulling closer. Legs that went on forever. Legs that would look deliciously wonderful wrapped around a man's waist. Legs that were shown off when she sat upon a stool near the bar and crossed one over the other.

The room seemed to groan in unison. A collective hard-on if Charlie ever saw one.

Himself included.

He watched her for a while. She shot down a number of people before they stopped coming to see if they could buy her a drink.

She bought her own. A white wine.

Charlie decided to test his luck. Couldn't hurt, after all. What was it his mum used to say? Worst anyone could ever say was 'no' to him?

Finishing off the remainder of his whiskey, he stood. Wobbled a bit, but stood and made his way over to the bar. He was bold (what Gryffindor wasn't?) at nearly twenty and took the seat next to hers, turning so that he was looking right at her. Her nose turned up slightly at the end; it was rather adorable if he wanted to put a word to it. Though it didn't particularly seem like the right word for it. However, a 'sultry upturned nose' didn't fit either.

"Do not try a line with me, young man. Heaven is not missing an angel. I am not cold and I don't wish to use you as a blanket. My legs are fine as I have not been running through your dreams all night." She paused and took a sip of her wine, finally turning her gaze towards him. Blue eyes that for some reason could be described as sharp almost seemed to bore into him. "Does that about sum it up?"

Charlie wasn't used to this. He knew he was good looking. Girls flirted with him all the time. He wasn't used to being rejected before he'd even said anything. Her attitude was a challenge and with at least four whiskeys under the belt he was ready for any challenge.

Pursing his lips, Charlie pushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes and looked down at the floor. One of shoes dangled from her toes. They were like something from one of those expensive shops in Paris that Meaghean always chattered on and on about. Manila blanks or something like that. Charlie didn't actually listen. Shoes just weren't his thing. Not really. He liked a good pair of sturdy boots that held up during the cold nights at the camp, but that was an entirely different thing all together. This particular shoe looked as though it would barely survive strolling across the street, let alone picking its way through camp.

He looked up at the woman. Blonde and icy. Older than him in a way that only showed through her eyes. Her skin was smooth. She probably hadn't ever seen a day of work in her life. She practically smelt like the upper crust.

A lopsided grin appeared on his face. "Nice shoes, lady," he said. "Wanna fuck?"

***

He woke on a bed that wasn't his own. She sat on the edge, her back to him. He had to hand it to her. She was not a simpering and delicate flower. Charlie would have called her a tiger, but that didn't seem to fit either. Instead he just shifted on the bed and slid his hand around her waist, hand splayed against her stomach.

"I think it's time you took your leave," she said, sounding a bit bored.

"So soon?" he asked, shifting closer and moving his lips up the curve of her spine. "Maybe we should do introductions. Seems only fitting since I've had my tongue on every inch of you. I'm Charlie. Charlie W--"

She spun around fast, hand snapping out to press against his mouth. "No last names, you complete fool!" Charlie was confused. How was she to look him up again the next time she was in the area? The question must have read across his eyes as though he had said it aloud because she frowned. "I don't plan to contact you again. You were... interesting. But I do not indulge like this often."

Lord he felt foolish. And used. Wadded up and tossed in the bin. The same sort of feeling when Meaghean came back with that fucking ring on her finger. Like he was worthless. Like moments spent with him were nothing, but shagging and exploding and quivering and sweating and swearing and caressing and gripping... Like none of that meant anything.

It kind of hurt to breathe.

"Grow a thicker skin, young man," she said upon removing her hand. "Enjoy yourself while you can or you'll end up tied down to a person you don't love in a life you don't wish to lead."

She rose from the bed and walked, naked, to the en suite. There was a glance over her shoulder as she dragged her fingertips along the door that spoke volumes. Before long, Charlie was scrambling out of bed to join her. To learn just a little bit more.

***

After that he would not see her again. Not in Romania at least. Charlie would have girlfriends, if you could call them that, and not get too attached to any of them. He would see her years later. She would be walking with her husband and son. It would be at the World Cup. Her son would say something horrible to his brother and friends. Charlie would be shocked.

She would look at him. She would pretend not to know who he was or the fact that he'd made her shriek until someone banged on that hotel room door.

He'd take that as another lesson.

And put it under his belt.

***********

**Title:** Various Drabbles from the Dramione_LDWS community.   
**Author:**   
**Rating:** PG - R  
 **Pairings:** Draco/Hermione  
 **Notes:** Entries to the community. Each one is listed with the prompt given at the time of the round and whether or not I placed. The last two are from the final round.

 

_"What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance." ~ Jane Austen ~_

Title: The Summer Swelter -- **Winner!** Mod's Choice  
Rating: PG  
Warnings: Use of Fahrenheit for temperatures. Although celsius has been used by the UK since the 1970s, the wizarding world, as we know, is resistant to change. ;)  
Word Count: 300

Air conditioning, still relatively unknown even in Muggle England, is not found in the Ministry of Magic. On days when the temperature outside reaches into the nineties and barely dips below the high seventies at night, The Ministry of Magic becomes unbearable. Cooling charms can only do so much. And even the magic that floats through the air feels like a heavy, humid blanket.

Not to mention the smells.

Draco hates his office, no window or vent. Hellfire and damnation and a pox on the idea of seniority! What good is the Malfoy fortune if it can't buy him a more comfortable place to work?! 

So. Occasionally, like today, he takes off his shoes and presses his bare feet flat against the flagstones that make up the floor. It's a brief respite from the temperature and makes him feel less wilted and rumpled and sweaty and disgusting. 

"Ice water?" Hermione asks, poking her head into his office. He's not surprised that she's here; she comes every day with something cold to drink. After all, it is her announcements that float through the corridors reminding everyone about the importance of fluids.

He nods.

She pours.

Condensation slips down the glass. He's not watching the glass; he's watching a bead of sweat slide down her neck, across her collarbone and down further toward her décolletage. Damn lucky bead of sweat. Were he a weaker man, he would follow that bead of sweat himself. But he's a strong man. Stronger than one might think. He's lived through an attack by a vicious hippogriff and stood in the presence of the Dark Lord.

She leans and holds out the glass to him; their fingers touch. The temperature goes even higher.

Draco finds that he is actually not a strong man and pulls her closer.

****  
 _"Like a tall glass of lemonade  
When it's burnin' hot on summer days  
She's exactly what I need."  
~ Passion – "Lemonade" lyrics ~_

Title: The Way Things Change -- **Winner!** First Place  
Rating: G  
Warnings: None  
Word Count: 350

 

"Must you watch me like that?" Draco asked, laying another brick. "It's bad enough I'm helping to piece together a magical castle as compensation. I don't need you breathing down my neck while I do it."

"They asked if someone would supervise you during the rebuild. I thought you might appreciate that it was me and not, say, Ron or Harry."

He hated to admit that Granger was right; her mates would have been unbearable. At least she was quiet about it. Sitting there on the ground, waiting for his time to be up for the day. Draco just didn't like the idea that he needed a babysitter. He just wished she would do something other than stare at him, all triumphant and winning, while he laboured without magic. Brick by brick.

*

"I brought a book today," she said, plunking down in her usual spot. "You might like it; It's a classic."

"In case you didn't notice, I'm a little busy." Draco held up the trowel, a clump of mortar fell off with a plop.

"Oh I know. I'm going to read aloud."

*

"I'm not taking that."

"It's just a tablet; it'll make you feel better." She pushed the glass into his hands and held out the tablet. "Unless you'd rather I go find someone to rush through a potion for your aches?"

Once he'd plucked it from her hand, she sat down. "Now. Where were we?"

"Chapter seven."

*

"You can't just go, Hermione," he said angrily. "We're not even done the book!"

"I don't have a choice, Draco." Hermione looked sad while packed her things. "I volunteered because they couldn't spare anyone else."

She was being replaced. By an Auror who smelt of tuna. She was the only thing that made his day bearable. The bright spot. With her book and her smiles and her laughter and her conversation. She couldn't do this to him!

"But I need you!" His face flushed at the truth of it.

"I don't think I'm what you need, Draco."

He kissed her. Because it might make her understand. "You're _exactly_ what I need."

****

Title: Eram quod es, eris quod sum  
Rating: G  
Warnings: None  
Word Count: 499

Her dress was simple. Black and cut to the knee. No sleeves. Square neckline. Somehow he noticed her clothing in amongst all the other things when she approached. She came to _him_ and not the other way around. He told himself it was only circumstance that caused their paths to cross.

In front of him was a marker. Just a marker because there hadn't been a body left. A marker and a name. For all his faults, Vincent had still been his friend. Some people called Crabbe merely a thug, but Draco had known the boy since they were children. He kicked at the white marker. _You blind fool,_ he thought bitterly and sat down on the grass.

"Go away, Granger," he said not looking up at her. "I'm having a private moment."

She stood there for a long while, a painful silence seemed to hang between them. She said nothing at first. Nothing about how she was attending a service for another student. Nothing about how she saw him here, by himself, in amongst the plots set aside for those who fell, but fell on the other side. She said nothing about Vince deserving to die.

Instead she sat beside him.

"Tell me about him?" she asked.

"Don't be ridiculous." He glanced at her and scowled.

"I want to know." She touched his arm; he could feel each finger.

"You don't want to know! You lot are all the same! Happy about winning and pleased as punch that it wasn't you. You all thought he was stupid and oafish and that he was only muscle. Why do you want to know about him? He was a poor sap who got lured in by Voldemort's promises!" Draco didn't even realise he was shouting. "I watched him _die_ , Granger! No one cared about what we lost! No, he was just a name in the paper! A _name_! You want me to tell you about him? He _burned_ to _death_ , Granger." His chest hitched. "He burned to death."

Draco pulled his knees up and rested his head against them, wishing he was elsewhere. Wishing she wasn't sitting beside him. Wishing she would stay forever. Wishing she would say something to cause the ache in his chest and throat finally go away. Wishing she hadn't seen this outburst.

Her small hand fit between his shoulder blades. Part of him wanted to turn toward her, let her comfort him. Lifting his head, Draco looked at her and opened his mouth to speak.

"Hermione? We're leaving!" A voice called out.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she said softly.

He felt conflicted and almost asked her to stay. Instead he watched her go. Sat there with Vincent Crabbe's grave marker and watched Hermione Granger leave. The tangle of emotions inside him made it difficult to filter his thoughts. Later he would approach her about it. Apologise for shouting at her. Later he would be more polite about it. 

She came to him first after all.

****

“I know I am but summer to your heart  
And not the full four seasons of the year.”  
~ Edna St. Vincent Millay ~

Title: Easy Love -- **Winner!** First Place  
Rating: PG-13  
Warnings: Nothing explicit.  
Word Count: 499

It's easiest to fall back in love with Draco in the summer months. Hermione maintains it has something to do with the extra vitamin D and ultraviolet light exposure. Winter hangs heavy on her mind and in her heart most years. In the fall she's cross with him and in the spring she is starting to see his good qualities again. The summer? The summer is the easiest.

They vanish from England, dipping their toes in the cultures of new lands. Testing the water and challenging themselves to learn. The papers speculate. Have they eloped? Secret love child? There was that spectacular story involving a Centaur and a Grecian urn, but no one could ever find hard evidence so the papers retracted it.

She feeds him kimchi in Seoul and chuckles when his face turns red. Their kisses burn in more ways than one.

They try their hand at Kabuki while tucked away in the Akaishi Mountains of Japan.

Hermione finds his facial expressions ticklishly hilarious. Draco says he'd rather see her out of her kimono than in.

It always ends the same way. They can only handle each other in small amounts. Two months is usually their limit. Which is why it's always summer. They end up fighting at the end. Angry for something. She's burnt the toast or he forgets to pick up his socks (there are no house elves in these parts). Something small and stupid closes off their hearts. I never want to see you again. This was a waste of my time. You're an awful person.

They never say: I hate you.

But like the leaves, it all goes brown and dies. Or goes dormant.

The winter is always cold. Cold hands, warm heart. Or cold heart and warm hands. Hermione can never remember. All she knows is she's cross with him. Wondering why she even bothered. They always say such hurtful things. But springtime comes and maybe he's not so bad. Maybe it's different now. Maybe she loves him.

Summer comes again and this time they travel to Africa. Maasai warriors sing to one another. In different ways Hermione and Draco sing between themselves. There is dancing. It becomes part of their pulsing heartbeats. They love it. They spend nights with the rhythm and learn a few different beats of their own along the way. Hermione wraps herself in colourful cloth and phrases, displaying them on her hips. Kangas have never been more attractive. Draco asks if she'll go topless. Hermione swats at him.

Then whispers that she will.

They love each other in the summertime. It's warm and delicious and easiest for them. They travel abroad to paint new canvasses of their lives. It's a cycle, an endless beginning, middle and end. Neither one of them seem to mind because even though it ends in the fall, it will always start again in the summer when their hearts are ready for each other.

When it’s the best time to fall in love.

****

“A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.”  
~ St. Francis of Assisi ~

Title: A Light in the Dark   
Rating: PG  
Warnings: None  
Word Count: 100

He battles giants with their swinging windmill arms. He has no Sancho and the giants turn to snake-faced monsters. They say that in dreams you cannot feel pain. They're wrong. The pain is far too real.

Hermione watches Draco dream, unable to avoid the chasm of his own sub-conscious. Nothing has helped. It all ends up the same. With his terrified whispers and her name always on his lips.

She touches his cheek.

"Chase away my shadows," he asks the brilliant light that cuts through his nightmare.

She murmurs to him that she will; the tension in his face disappears.

****  
“A life without love is like a year without summer.” ~ Swedish Proverb ~

Title: Meeting Halfway -- **Winner!** First Place  
Rating: PG  
Warning: Use of poetic devices. A fiasco is a typical Italian style of bottle.  
Word Count: 450

She sits. She sits alone at a table. She sits alone at a table with a red checkered table cloth and a stubby candle wedged into an empty Chianti fiasco, the woven basket that encases it is coated in old wax from past dinner services. Hermione reads a menu she cannot understand, shivering because the nights in Venice have been unusually cold and the window beside her is open. The candlelight flickers and she is alone.

In England the skies are grey and it is raining again. Draco's brought it upon himself, he thinks. She left for Italy. She left for Italy because he said there was nothing between them. She left for Italy because he pushed her away before she had the chance to leave him first and damage his pride and make him the fool and let the world know that she was the air that he breathed. Now her desk is empty and he does his paperwork and tries not to think about how she always kept on his case to make sure everything was filled out properly and to the Ministry's standards.

He misses her.

She misses him.

So between them it's all rain and empty tables and cold summers and misery. Both are just stubborn enough to stick fast to their choices. Rigid English oaks instead of supple willows that sway in the wind and bend back and forth and _compromise_.

Then one day, weeks later, he's waiting in the Portkey Office. Ticket in hand. Now serving number seventeen then eighteen then nineteen. He's number twenty. The man behind the counter is rotund and heavily moustached causing Draco to think of Slughorn and grimace at the memories that flitter to the surface. He thinks about how she forgave him for all that. She was always forgiving him for his past sins. He hopes she will do the same this time. Draco holds out his ticket and his application form.

"Wait," she says breathlessly from behind.

He turns, blinking in surprise.

"I was just coming to find you," they say together.

"I'm not letting you go without a fight," they say together.

"I love you," they say together.

In Venice, the wind shifts and warm breezes dance across the city, rippling the canals and warming the residents enough that they shed their layers. In England, the rain stops and the clouds break and the sun sparkles on the wet pavement. In the Portkey office, Draco kisses Hermione. In front of everyone and with everything he has. She kisses back with the same enthusiasm. There are smiles. Relief fills both of them. They're not as stubborn as they'd thought, meeting halfway and admitting things on equal terms.

****  
“Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul.” ~Author Unknown~

Title: Taking Root -- **Winner!** Mod's Choice  
Rating: G  
Warnings: None. EWE.  
Word Count: 499

"You need me," Hermione said, hands on hips.

"I do not!" Draco protested, pretending the backroom desk was not piled with bills and requests for payments and that his shop, _his_ shop, was in danger of closing.

His father had called him a fool. His friends had already taken bets on how fast this endeavor was going to tank. He couldn't be a businessman. He couldn't be a potion shop keep. He couldn't be brave. He couldn't break free of the Dark Lord. He couldn't be a friend. He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't.

"Look. I get that this is a pride thing, Malfoy. But you need me. I have some ideas and I think we could save this potions shop." She looked far too eager and she pulled a thick, brown folder out of her shoulder bag. "Are you game?"

He was certain he would regret it, but finally nodded.

&&&

Damn, damn, damn, damn and double damn. Hermione'd been right. Draco scowled whenever he looked at the plus signs in his ledger. Her ideas. Her rather brilliant ideas had brought him up slightly. Growing his own ingredients instead of relying on what could very well be substandard, developing his own potions, working late nights with her as they tweaked old recipes to produce something new.

Something new.

She made him smile sometimes.

"Oh _Draco_ ," she brought in an armful of roots and plants. There was a smudge on her nose. When she started calling him by his first name, he didn't know. He didn't really care either. "You should see the greenhouse today. I think those are the fattest mandrakes I have ever seen."

"I'm not surprised," he sniffed, trying to be his old self, yet really having trouble connecting with it. She'd brought out something in him that he didn't even realise he had. "You've been coddling them like a hen for months. Sometimes I fear they won't be as potent because they won't be as grumpy."

"That," she dumped the produce on his prep counter. A bell tinkled when someone entered the shop. She rubbed her face and the smudge got bigger. "That is a common misconception. I'll bring some of the new research in for you to read."

"I haven't even finished the last three studies you dropped on Monday. I swear, you're worse than McGonagall," he teased then brought out his handkerchief and, without thinking, reached over to wipe the dirt from her face.

Slowly her gaze lifted to meet his. The way she looked at him was completely different. Startled and somewhat embarrassed, Draco pushed the handkerchief into her hand and excused himself. There were customers to serve. There was profit to be made. He didn't want to take the time to address that things were changing and blooming between them.

He was full of something unfamiliar. And frightening.

And more than completely welcome.

It just needed time to root itself in his heart. So he could be sure that it would flourish.

***

“The quarrels of lovers are like summer showers that leave the country more verdant and beautiful” ~ Sisanne Curchod Necker ~

Title: The Anniversary Toast -- **First Runner Up**  
Rating: G  
Warnings: None  
Word Count: 300

We fight about the stupidest things sometimes. It always starts out that way. A mess of papers in the study or an unmade bed. But no matter how often the argument starts out small, it usually ends with both of us feeling like everything is about to end. Often I wonder if it's because we have such a past. How can you stop yourself from bringing out the big guns when you have all that murky history? Hurtful words on the tips of our tongues ready to be fired at one another.

Never Mudblood.

Never Death Eater.

Hermione and I, we know our boundaries. Because when it comes down to the crux of it all, these are just arguments about stupid things. I don't hate her. Even if I find Potter and Weasley the most irritating of her friends. Even if she finds the request that she always wear a skirt around my mother infuriating and, her favourite term, "anti-feminist."

I really don't know what she means by this. A skirt is the most feminine thing in the world. And she does have _great_ legs.

It's funny though. We fight. I walk away. She cries. We spend time apart. Sometimes an afternoon. Sometimes it's a day. Once, only once, it was a week. And then we talk. We talk about our outbursts and we make up.

I like that part. I _especially_ like that part.

Everything is stronger between the arguments. Her and I are such different people. There's bound to be these little hiccups. Yet, and this is just me, I dare say it makes what we have stronger because we've always worked through it and come out better on the other side.

Twenty-five years, two children, one grandchild and many quarrels later we must be doing something right.

 

Title: Belief -- **First Runner Up**  
Rating: G  
Warnings: None.   
Using words: Thunderstorm, Clouds, Heat, Escape, Sweat  
Word Count: 599

When Hermione was small, Granny Granger would tell her that the rumbling from the dark clouds above her was merely the angels playing cricket with God and the flash of lightening was when he'd bowled particularly well. It was a fanciful way of explaining what was happening above. Hermione never truly bought into it because she didn't think it was logical to believe in something she didn't see.

Then she got her letter to Hogwarts and her world view, at eleven, became a bit skewed. And started to believe in many things she couldn't see.

When Draco was small, there were no such fairytales in his life. Thunderstorms were just what they were. Magic could be found elsewhere and he only knew of the idea of God because his mother happened to have a penchant for very old, very valuable books and she kept a gilded bible from the seventeenth century in among all the other volumes in the library. The stories were strange to him. Muggles were a strange lot, easily believing in this unseen force that could smite them at any moment. Violence for everyone. Nothing good ever came from Muggles, he decided.

It was many years later that he realised that there were some good things that came from Muggles. Or at least one good person.

"How did we end up this way?" she asked him once as they both lay on the stone floor of the Malfoy family library, an early edition of _Paradise Lost_ butterflied on her stomach, trying to escape the heat of the day by absorbing the lower temperature from the cool stones under their bodies.

"What way?" he asked, his arm flung over his eyes, trying not to think how much sweat had gathered at the small of his back.

"You and I. How did we end up here? How did we look past everything and end up in this place we're in. This place where you love me and I love you. It wasn't ever logical of us, was it? We had such different paths."

Draco peeked at her from under his arm and smiled. She always got thoughtful when she read Milton. It was one of her more amusing qualities. There was a point to everything she said. No one expected that they would be here. Potter and Weasley wouldn't talk to her for months when it happened. Everything had sort of mellowed out since. Not enough that her friends would ever consider inviting him out to the pub, but at least the howlers had ceased.

Turning on his side, Draco reached over and plucked the book from her stomach, closing it and setting it aside.

"We ended up here because it was the most natural place to end up. You and I... we started out with such certain views of the world. We compromised and decided to look beyond it all. I lucked out. Because beyond it all just so happened to be the person that completes my life... You surprise me every day."

"Do you believe in invisible things?" She glanced at him. "Like angels playing cricket in thunderstorms or unseen forces that influence our lives?"

"I have to."

"Why?"

"Because if I didn't then I wouldn't be able to trust that someone like you could love someone like me."

She smiled, her cheeks reddening beyond the pink the sun had put there earlier in the afternoon. He had a point. It was easier now to believe in things she couldn't see than it had been when she was small and everything was all angels and thunder.

***********

**Title:** Reparations  
 **Chapter:** One - In which we are bound by our commitments.  
 **Pairing(s):** Draco/Hermione. Mentions of Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny and later there will be developments  
 **Summary:** The reconstruction of Hogwarts is being done by those given commuted sentences by the Ministry. Hermione volunteers to supervise one of the workers in order to make some sort of a difference.  
 **Rating** PG-13 -- R  
 **Wordcount:** 3379  
 **Author's Notes:** This was written as an expanded story behind a drabble entry to . The story is DH compliant, excluding epilogue and interview canon. It is an abandoned chaptered story. I might come back to it. But there are only two chapters of it and it hasn't been touched since 2009.

***

_31 August 1998_

"You realise the responsibility we're giving you, Miss Granger?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked, sitting behind a large, dark desk. "You, along with the rest of your classmates still have the opportunity to write your NEWTs. We've Floo'd in the best and brightest professors from other schools around the world to give all of you that chance."

"I do appreciate it, Minister," Hermione said, hands folded neatly in her lap. "But I don't think there is anything that the Ministry's temporary school can teach me that I don't already know." 

If anyone was overhearing her conversation, they would have thought this was some impostor who had polyjuiced themselves with their face. If it weren't for the explicit spells, plus the fact that they'd made her wait for practically forever just to make sure that any feature-altering potions had worn off, Kingsley himself wouldn't have actually believed the words coming out of her mouth. But Hermione was resolute. She wanted to help with the rebuild of the school in any way that she could. She wasn't like Harry or Ron. She didn't have a desire to become an Auror, so she had no need for the final exams. Exams she could probably have written right then and there and still gotten O's.

"There aren't enough Aurors to supervise those who have been sentenced into service for the ministry," she continued with a matter-of-fact tone. "I need to do something constructive and, at this point, sitting in a cramped room in the Ministry taking classes isn't good enough. You said yourself that you needed volunteers to keep an eye on some of the less dangerous people."

"I didn't mean an eighteen-year-old --"

"If you say 'girl' or 'child', Minister Shacklebolt, I won't hesitate to hex you." Hermione raised her eyebrows. She didn't feel eighteen anymore. She felt ancient. Like the war had stripped her of everything young and fool-hardy.

A rumble of a sound started deep in Kingsley's chest. This chit certainly had bollocks to speak to him like that. Especially considering that all wands were registered and monitored inside Ministry walls these days. He started to laugh. Far be it from him to deny Hermione Granger a request. The girl had gone above and beyond anyone with her dedication to the Order of the Phoenix, to the Ministry, to the Wizarding World. She, along with her friends, had suffered more than just about anyone and still wanted to lend her services where they were needed most. She was right in all respects, with more volunteers for the minor felons, his Aurors could take a step back from the repairs of the castle and return to seeking out Death Eaters that were still at large. He wouldn't have to keep pulling Unspeakables off their cases and that would satisfy the Department of Mysteries very much.

"Well, Miss Granger, you're persistent, I will give you that." He pulled a black folder out of his desk and lay it in front of her. "We're glad to have your services. This one isn't a very pleasant wizard to be around. You'll need to bind your wand with his to limit his magic during his shifts. He won't like it. But he's reporting to the castle on the first to begin his service work if he knows what's good for him, so he won't put up much of a fight. I suggest you prepare yourself."

Hermione placed her hand on the folder and pulled it toward herself while Kingsley spoke at length of the certain spells that would be used to bind him. That the Ministry was strictly enforcing the use of wands, for the rebuild. The walls of Hogwarts needed to be carefully redone. Magic being infused into the very mortar and bricks. It would not be an easy task and they'd commuted a lot of sentences to this sort of community service for those who had committed crimes but had shown themselves to be useful. Much of the public was divided on this idea, but there had been little choice. Azkaban was simply not large enough for everyone.

Flipping open the file, Hermione felt her stomach clench. Oh of _course_.

***

_31 August, 1998_

Waving her wand over the stack of books, Dickens, Thackeray, Dumas, Fielding, Hermione shrunk each of the volumes down to a reasonable size and placed them into the corner of her trunk, piling a good number of rolled socks on top of them. Next went all of her unmentionables. Ron sat on the edge of her bed, looking at the wall while she did this. She didn't want him to see her underthings. It just didn't seem proper.

"I'm done with that; could you pass me those jumpers beside you?" she asked, holding out her hands.

Ron handed her three rather pilled jumpers which she placed in the trunk along with some skirts, shoes, trousers and various other things that would be needed for an extended stay away from home. He tried to hide his displeasure but it was rolling off his shoulders in waves. Hermione had known him far too long to not be able to tell when he was hacked off at something. Ron wore his emotions like most people wore their clothing. She wasn't sure if he actually knew the meaning of internalising his emotions.

"I still don't know why you want to do this, Hermione," he said after a moment of pulling at the nubbins on her blanket.

"Well I've told you. I want to do something where I'm making a difference." She hated having to explain herself over and over. Ron didn't understand. Harry didn't understand. Ginny said she understood but Hermione was certain that she didn't. Everyone expected her to go back to class. Like her life could ever be that sort of thing again. Classes and lessons and tests and marks. It just didn't seem to _matter_ anymore.

She tucked the black folder in under her dressing gown. Ron's protests about her leaving had been loud enough that she'd avoided telling him her assignment simply for the fact that, one, it wasn't really his business and, two, she didn't want to have that argument. 

"What about us?" he asked, stretching out his legs, finally broaching a subject they'd just sort of danced around all summer. "We've just sort of figured ourselves out and now you're leaving."

Hermione closed the trunk and latched it before sliding it onto the floor and sitting beside him. She took his hand in hers because it was simply the only thing she knew what to do with herself when she was around him. Her and Ron. Hadn't that always been the plan somehow? Everyone said so. They'd always expected it would happen sooner or later. And somehow Hermione felt like those few moments at Hogwarts were already miles away and that things were just as stagnant as ever. Perhaps it was her fault. She'd been so wrapped up in everything else that she didn't know how to approach this change in their relationship. It was all so new.

She knew he had all these feelings for her.

She had feelings for him; she just wasn't sure what they were.

"Ron this isn't about us. This is about me doing something that I want to do for a change rather than doing something I have to do because the fate of the world rests on our shoulders. This was an opportunity to lend a hand in a different way." She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"I'm just worried. It's dangerous."

"I'm not supervising the dangerous felons; I'm working with the non-dangerous ones."

"They're all dangerous."

Hermione swatted at him. "After all we've been through, facing what we faced, you'd think you'd have more faith in my abilities to defend myself."

Ron smiled at her in that lopsided way that he always managed to be able to pull off and put his arms around her. This was all sort of new for her. This affection directed at her. The kisses. The way his lips felt on her neck. The slide of his hand across her stomach. His little whispers. His hand moving higher. Just a little bit, but enough that she started to feel that flutter in her stomach that she couldn't seem to label as delicious nerves or flat out panic. And when his fingers moved across her breast, she grabbed his wrist and leaned away from him.

"Stop, Ron," she said quietly. "I can't. Not with my parents just downstairs. They still haven't adjusted to the memory modifications. Let alone trying to explain how a boy got into my room without even coming through the front door."

He sighed and shifted on the bed, looking a bit uncomfortable.

"You're going to be gone for almost a whole year," he said petulantly.

Hermione pursed her lips briefly then looked at him. "You'll hardly even notice. You and Harry will be too busy with your classes and getting ready for your NEWTs so you can get in with the Aurors. And you can Apparate so you'll be able to come up and visit. Plus there's owls."

It wasn't going to be the same. She knew it and he knew it. Maybe it would have been better if they hadn't tried to start this relationship when everything was so completely up in the air, though neither of them wanted to admit it. She knew she had to get her head in the right place and she wasn't sure how to do it or move back into a regular life anymore. A year was such a short time. It always seemed to go by quickly. By the end, she figured she'd have things figured out.

She just hoped it her decisions would be the right ones.

Ron nodded and got up off the bed, placing a kiss on her forehead and grabbing his jacket. "I'll see you at the platform tomorrow then?" he asked as if he needed her permission.

Hermione smiled. "You'd better. I'd like at least one friendly face to see me off."

***

_1 September, 1998_

Volunteers for the rebuild supervision had their own car on the Hogwarts express. Hermione sat next to a paunchy sort of fellow with a very large handlebar moustache who reminded her of Professor Slughorn in too many ways that she caught herself a couple of times almost calling him 'professor.' There were two Hitwizards at the front of the car giving all of them instructions on the exact spells they were to use to bind their charge's magic. That these spells would not wear off until released and that the felons they were dealing with knew this already. Hermione listened attentively because she'd not had a chance to try this sort of magic before. It sounded questionable, but she supposed it was the only thing they could manage without shackling everyone together with chains and pickaxes and striped uniforms. At least, she'd heard, there weren't going to be any strict dress codes for the prisoners.

A few people asked questions. Most remained silent. There were a few smiles and that made Hermione uneasy. Like some of the volunteers were looking forward to this. Taking someone's magic and holding it hostage.

Hermione didn't necessarily like the idea at all.

The woman at the head of the train, who had introduced herself as a constable and had mentioned something about how her father was Muggle and worked at Scotland Yard, put aside her notes and balled her fists against her hips. Hermione sat forward.

"When we arrive at the school, you will be ushered into the Great Hall. From there you will be introduced to your charges and directed to your assigned dorms. Those of you assisting the Aurors with the criminals that are believed to be more dangerous than others will not be housed in the same dorms as those to which you have been assigned. If you have a minor felon, those of you with black folders, in your charge, you will be housed in the same dorms. It is our hope that constant interaction will be an extremely beneficial aspect to their sentence."

Questions were asked and answered. Hermione barely heard most of them. All she could think about now was just how angry Harry and Ron were going to be if and when they found out about all of this. She sat back against the chair and looked out the window at the countryside whipping past the car and thought about all the times that they'd sat on the train, chattering about the new school year, trying not to think about what sort of things were going to happen next, Ron eating too many chocolate frogs and being sick out the window and Harry rubbing his scar when no one was looking.

Her mind went in and out of daydreams until she was being nudged by the rotund man beside her and she realised that the train had actually come to a stop. They were ushered out of the car and into carriages. Hermione looked at the floor because in a silly sort of way she wanted to pretend that she couldn't see the leathery creatures that pulled them along toward the school. She'd seen death. Too much of it. The thestrals were a reminder of that. And made her think of all the faces she'd seen.

"I've seen them all my life, young lady," Mr Moustache said, patting her shoulder with a meaty hand. "It isn't so bad once you get used to it."

"People say that about a lot of things," Hermione answered as she glanced over. "I'll have to take your word for it, because it's all rather fresh in my mind still."

Fresh didn't even begin to cover it. It had only been a few months since they'd lay Fred, Tonks, Remus and so many others into the ground. Hermione went to all the funerals. Harry too. Ron couldn't. He had his own wounds to tend to. His own broken family. But her and Harry attended. Out of some sort of loyalty to the wizarding world. To show that they, as survivors, cared enough about those who had given their lives. It got to be too much. Harry stopped appearing. The _Prophet_ had written stories about it. Hermione still attended. Shed tears. Until everyone was taken care of.

She was out of tears.

The Great Hall looked no different than how it had the day they had left. A mess. A jumble of tables and broken stones. Paintings either hung askew or were on the floor, the subjects had long since fled to other paintings around the castle. A few House banners still hung from the walls, torn and waiting for repair. The 'dor' was missing in Gryffindor. A few pieces of armour lay in the corners, lost to their owners when the battle was over. It all had to be sorted, cleaned, repaired and replaced. Hermione didn't even want to think about the rest of the castle.

She waited with her black folder tucked under her arm as the other half of the group was ushered in. Most of the faces that stared back at the volunteers were angry, some were reserved, a few cast glances about the castle and showed remorse.

The Auror in charge started calling names. First the condemned, then the volunteer or officer assigned to them. One by one everyone was paired off.

Hermione waited. Standing behind some taller people, out of sight.

"Malfoy, Draco."

She peeked past the elbow of the wizard in front of her, half expecting him to shuffle forward in chains. Draco had gotten off fairly easy, to Harry and Ron's utter chagrin. The Malfoys in general had been forced to donate much of their fortune to the Ministry. Everything had been limited. Narcissa had been given community work at St. Mungo's. Lucius and his son, shipped off to Hogwarts where they would rebuild, get their hands dirty and work until they understood the damage that they had caused. Hermione had been against splitting up the family. She tried to explain how it was akin to the treatment of Germany after the Great War and look how that turned out. Ron was too involved in his grief over Fred and Harry trying to sort out his own life to look beyond it all. To them the punishment was far too easy.

Hermione clenched her hands into tight fists as the Auror looked over to where she stood.

"Granger, Hermione."

"Oh, you've got to be _kidding_ me!" 

Hermione stepped forward only to meet Draco's irritated expression. She wanted to slap him. Tell him that he hadn't been her first choice either. That he was insufferable and a spoiled little brat. She wanted to throw her folder at him and march out of the Great Hall never to look back. But if she'd done all that he would have ended up winning. Getting under her skin like an itch that would never go away. She was not going to allow Draco Malfoy to intimidate or insult her like that.

With a sharp look, Hermione stood in front of him. "Suck it up, Malfoy, and deal with it."

His eyebrows shot up. Though she wondered why he was surprised that she spoke to him like that. It wasn't as if she had ever really been all that pleasant to him in the first place. A hit wizard came forward and held out Draco's wand, which had, like the others that belonged to the condemned, been locked away for safe keeping. They kept their own wands trained on him in case he decided to do something extremely stupid. Hermione held out hers toward him.

"I'm not letting you take all the magic from my wand, Granger," Draco said stubbornly, clutching his wand to his chest as though he hadn't seen it in ages. Which he hadn't.

"It's either this or you can do a stint in Azkaban," Hermione said under her breath. She had read the papers. She knew that this had been his choice. "You knew this was going to happen. Everyone else has gone through it already and you're holding up the line."

There was a great moment of hesitation from him. He stood there, not moving, just glaring at everyone around the room before stepping forward and thrusting out his wand at her, his knuckles had gone white from holding the instrument as hard as he was holding it. She could see the statements in his eyes as clear as if they were coming out of his mouth. You'd better not muck this up, Mudblood. I hate you. I hate what you and your people have done. I shouldn't have to do this. It isn't fair. You're to blame. This would have all gone much easier if no one had tried to save the world. I hate you. I don't trust you. You're beneath me. I hate you.

With a sigh, Hermione touched the tip of her wand to his and began the incantation. There were three parts. His wand glowed green, the green transferred to hers. Her wand glowed red and the glow transferred to his. His magic would be stored with hers, dampened enough that he could not perform anything greater than basic First Year spells. Every spell he cast would register with her wand. She would be able to feel it. It was new magic. Developed over the last couple of months for just such occasions. It was a dampening spell and a tracking spell and a registration spell all rolled into one.

Suddenly Draco grabbed her wrist and Hermione gasped. There were shouts from the Aurors to let her go. He ignored them and squeezed her wrist enough that she could feel her own bones shift under the tightness of his hand. A bit of a whimper escaped her throat. She met his gaze and gave her arm a bit of a tug.

"That is _my_ magic, Granger. I expect you to be careful with it," he warned, releasing her arm and dropping his wand. It hit the floor with a clatter and he raised his hands in surrender to the Aurors to show he meant no harm.

***

Reparations - Chapter 2

_19 September, 1998_

_Dear Hermione,_

_Happy Birthday from Harry and me! We thought you might enjoy some sweets to get you through your day. I still can't believe you chose this over classes, but from what we've read in the paper the reconstruction is coming along alright. School is dead boring and it's not a lot of fun without you here to help us with our homework, but we seem to be doing alright. There's loads of Ravenclaws and some Hufflepuffs in our class._

_They put Harry with that quiet bloke, Terry Boot and I've been sharing a table with Susan Bones. They're nice enough, but I would have rather sat with Harry. Professor Carter (well, he likes us to call him Mr Carter because he's from across the pond and doesn't consider himself a professor) says that us sitting apart is a good way to "move away from being so insular", which I just think is a fancy way of saying that he wants us to learn to be friends with other people. Susan's alright. She lets me peek at her notes._

_Oh! So Mum's in a right strop with Ginny. Instead of going back to classes, Ginny tried out for the Harpies and made it on the team. Mum is livid because she wanted Ginny to have a good education before dashing off to play at being a Quidditch star. She's the first Weasley to make it onto a professional team. Charlie and Bill had offers, but they went and chose another career. I'm proud of her._

_So who is it you're looking after, eh? They didn't publish any lists and your last letter didn't talk about it much. Harry and I have been trying to guess. He's got money down saying that you're probably supervising one of the girls. He's hoping for that cow, Parkinson because he'd love to see pictures of her up to her elbows in manual labour. 'Cept I told him that the paper says the girls have all been assigned to the volunteer staff at St Mungo's._

_Wow. This letter is getting long. Bet you didn't think I could write a letter this long, did you? We miss you lots. I miss you lots more than Harry, but you already know that, yeah? Write back soon, Hermione. We're dying for news._

_Yrs,  
Ron_

_PS: We heard Malfoy was up there. Take a picture and ask if he remembers how I punched him in the face!_

Hermione folded the letter back along its creases and tucked it into the pages of the book she'd brought with her. Today Draco was assigned to rebuilding one of the crumbled walls. Already the rubble of the previous stonework had been cleared away and there was a brand new stack of bricks waiting to be put together. She watched him add more water to the mortar mix and give it another good stir. A old wizard bricklayer had spent the majority of the day before giving him instruction on the proper procedure. Hermione had taken notes in case Draco had questions afterward.

"Here," she said, holding out a box of chocolate frogs. "Would you like one?"

He turned and eyed the box suspiciously. "What for?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. He was always infuriatingly questioning or making biting remarks about everything she did. Either she wasn't watching him properly or she was standing over him like an angry teacher and he was not a naughty schoolboy. _Must you look like McGonagall every day?_ he'd asked after she'd stood by those first few days, watching him clear out refuse and rubble, taking it to the designated area for garbage. Unable to decide what she could do to make things different, Hermione had offered to help carry some things. That had been met with just as much scorn, him firmly stating that he was fully capable of carrying out his sentence _without_ her help.

"Oh just take one, Malfoy. It's just a chocolate frog. Ron and Harry sent them for my birthday and I don't think I can eat them all myself."

He snorted and set aside the stirring paddle, checking the mortar with his trowel and then began to slather it across a brick. "For people who tote themselves as your best friends, you'd think they'd send you something you'd enjoy more. Like a novel or another book of some sort."

Heat radiated from Hermione's burning cheeks. She absolutely did not want to admit that he was right. Her spirits had fallen slightly when she opened the gift only to find an average box of chocolate frogs. Frogs with cards that she would most likely send back to Ron because he still collected them. What she would have liked was the new experimental Charms theory book that H.Q. Barrington had just published the week before. It had been all over the literary section of the _Prophet_. Hermione had even sent the article to Ron to hint that it was something she was interested in.

"At least they remembered," she said sharply, tossing the box of frogs onto the ground. A few started to wriggle and croak in their wrappers. "How many of your friends remembered _your_ birthday?"

It was below the belt. Everyone knew that the Malfoys along with every other Death Eater (or those aligned with them) had been in custody over the whole summer without the privilege of receiving post. As soon as she'd said it, though, Hermione felt terrible. She hated stooping to his level and dishing out snide comments, but he brought out the worst in her sometimes.

Stomping over to a bench, Hermione sat down with her arms crossed.

An hour passed; the only sound filling the space between them was the careful scrape of his trowel against the brick. Three times she opened her mouth to start a conversation, but chose to remain silent because a small voice kept reminding her that to spark conversation with Draco Malfoy would be like opening a can of worms. So all she could do was watch his hunched back and the way his shoulder blades moved under his shirt. His hands were filthy, black lines of grime under his fingernails and his shirt had a tear in the hem. There was a shameful sort of satisfaction that blossomed down inside her from seeing him in such a state of disrepair. She didn't like the feeling, but after years of insults it seemed to rear its ugly head.

"I know you're hard up Granger, what without having Weasel nearby to distract you and all, but must you ogle me?" Draco had turned slightly, smirking at her. "I'm finding it difficult to work under these conditions."

Hermione's face went an embarrassing shade of red and she averted her eyes. She hadn't been staring. At least not to the point where it would be considered ogling. Under extreme torture she might actually admit that he was fairly fit. He didn't have Ron's good-natured smile or bright eyes, but that wasn't to say that he was ugly. But she hadn't been staring. No. No, not like that.

"You're imagining things, Malfoy," she said with a glare. "I wouldn't ogle you if you were the last man on earth. In case you hadn't realised, I _have_ a boyfriend and I'm most certainly not "hard up" so don't make assumptions about me."

"We all make assumptions. You make them about me. Why should I be exempt from this?"

"I do not!" Hermione protested without much weight behind it. God, she hated when he was right. Hated it. Hate. Hate. Hate. "Name one thing that anyone has assumed about you that hasn't proved remotely true. You're selfish. You can't stand that a _Mudblood_ was better than you in class. You got out of this with little more than a slap on the wrist while the rest of us lost almost everything! People I loved died, Malfoy. They died. We had to bury Ron's brother. Remus. _Your_ cousin, Tonks. We had to bury our friends!"

He threw down the trowel with such force that it broke, the blade skittering across the stone floor toward her feet. She'd not seen him this angry before. All the times he'd been cross with Harry, his face never showed such a blind, cold fury. Draco took a step toward her and Hermione took a step back. Somewhere she knew she'd crossed the line. But that was the thing with arguments, you try to say the most hurtful thing you can to come out on top. It's how it always went with Ron.

"When you can come back to me and tell me you saw one of your friends overcome by fire and burn to death, _then_ we'll talk about loss. You had it easy."

" _Easy_?" she asked incredulously. "Tell me how being separated from my parents and spending a year trying to survive and being tortured by members of _your_ family in your house is easy?!"

"You didn't have to live with it year round! Genuflecting to a dark lord that was clearly insane! Since then? I've lost all my friends. My family's lost almost everything. Our _home_ has been practically razed to the ground! You don't know anything about what my life was like then and is like now, Granger. You just have all these preconceived notions that it must have been strawberries and champagne and fancy parties simply because I survived it all without much of a scratch." He paused, rubbing the middle of his chest. "Oh wait. Except I do have a scratch. A few of them, actually, no thanks to your Golden Boy, Potter."

That caused her mouth to close with an audible click of teeth against teeth.

He had a point.

***

_23 September, 1998_

_Hermione,_

_Your father and I won't pretend to know everything that you're talking about. Getting used to the idea that there is such a world with smoke and magic and mystical creatures a second time is proving to be a little harder than the first. Even the way this world sends its letters. Your father nearly had a heart attack when that bird arrived all feathers and squawking, landing in the middle of his eggs and not letting up until he'd given it some toast._

_It sounds as though this young man and yourself are at strong odds. I'm sorry and I wish that I could do something to make it easier for you, my dear._

_I do have a suggestion for you, love. Instead of focusing on your intertwined pasts, why don't you just leave that subject behind a closed door? Read aloud to him instead of bringing up other subjects. A good book is a healthy distraction. Always. You never know. This young man might appreciate it if you didn't prod him extensively in wounds that have not yet healed. You know as well as I do, that this sort of behaviour only breeds infection, whether it be physical or metaphorical. It seems you would both benefit from a cessation of sore subject matter._

_Pick a book, Hermione, and read aloud to him. One, it will help pass the long hours and, two, you have a pleasant reading voice. You get that from your father. He might enjoy the change._

_All my love,  
Mum._

Glancing at the letter once more, Hermione set it down on her bed and looked over the books she'd spread out on the quilt. All of them classics. Nothing that he would have heard before. At least she didn't think that Draco Malfoy had an extensive background in eighteenth and nineteenth century Muggle fiction. Though she had been surprised before. Truthfully, Hermione didn't think that this suggestion of her mother's was going to work. She'd tried reading aloud to Harry and Ron once, but they'd mostly groaned and squirmed until she eventually gave up.

Finally Hermione selected her worn copy of _David Copperfield_ and carried it out of the room with her.

The wall he was working on was slow going. Draco would work a line of bricks and then Hermione would have to check over the work and implement spells that she had on a list to infuse the bricks and joints with the right sort of magic. As far as she was concerned it would never be the same. She felt like a doctor trying to reconstruct a badly scarred person. Hogwarts was almost living and breathing, just like a person. Anything they did to it was... Not the same as the original construction.

"I've brought a book," she said and seated herself on the ground behind him.

Draco looked at her with raised eyebrows. A clump of mortar slid off his trowel and landed beside him with a plop. He stooped to scrape it off the ground, being careful not to get too much debris in the mixture. "In case you haven't noticed, Granger, I'm a little busy."

Hermione waved her hand dismissively and cracked open the book. "I know. I'm going to read it aloud. Just let me know when you're done a row and I'll do the spells."

"I hardly see the point of you reading--"

"Please, Draco," she said. "Just let me do this. It's a nice way to pass the time."

Had she been looking at him, Hermione would have seen the startled look on his face. She would have seen that startled look melt into an expression of utter confusion. He was well within his rights to be confused. She'd just said please to him. And called him by his first name. It was a pleasant request and not a demand. There wasn't anything behind it; Hermione merely wanted to get started on the book and not spend the next ten minutes arguing about it. So she asked nicely.

"Fine. But if this is some Muggle story, I reserve the right to interrupt you and ask questions about it without being ridiculed."

"I'm not going to ridicule you if you have questions."

A soft snort could be heard and she watched him for a long moment as he started his work again. Looking down at the pages, Hermione smiled. Reading Dickens, for her, was like coming home. Like wrapping herself in something that was ultimately the epitome of familiarity. If ever she started to feel like she wasn't exactly herself, all she had to do was curl up with a classic book and it was like rediscovering who she was all over again.

"That's the first time you've called me Draco," he said quietly and had she not been paying attention she wouldn't have heard it. But she did hear it. And she wasn't sure what to say in response.

So she started to read instead.

" _Chapter one. I am Born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night._ " Hermione shuffled back so she was leaning against something and bent her knees, resting the spine of the book where her legs touched together. " _It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously...._ "

***

_3 October 1998_

"I'm just saying, Granger." Draco shrugged, a tiny smirk on his face. "It's not got anything to do with how you're reading it. I just don't like the choices you've made."

"How can you not like any of these?" Hermione snapped the third book shut. He'd stopped her and asked for a different book after the first few chapters of each. "They're excellent stories."

"They're dull as tombs," He lay a brick down and settled it into place before smoothing his finger along the mortar that had squeezed out. "And they're all the same."

An incredulous laugh came out of her mouth. "Oh they are not. You're being silly."

"David Copperfield is eventually without parents. Oliver Twist is an orphan. Now this Tom Jones fellow is a foundling?" He shook his head and dropped the trowel in the empty bucket, wiping his forehead with a rather soiled handkerchief. "No wonder you latched onto Potter so quickly. You've seriously got a complex about boys with no parental influence."

Hermione tossed the book aside and got to her feet, moving to check the work that he'd done before she pulled out her wand. Not once in her life had she considered the characters of her favourite books in such a way. They weren't like Harry. They weren't! Yet they were all in the same sort of boat. The lack of parents. It was a pattern. She didn't want to admit that aloud, but the pattern was there. Not that it ever factored into her choice to befriend Harry Potter. But to explain that to Draco Malfoy? He'd never believe her.

"Well what would you like me to read?" she asked finally as she wove spells into the brickwork. "There isn't much else left in my trunk, so you're running out of choices. I don't exactly have a library of fiction novels at my disposal."

"Something exciting. This Dickens fellow is depressing and the whole orphan thing is annoying."

Turning to face him, Hermione tilted her head. "I might have something. It's the last book I brought with me. If you don't like this one, you'll have to wait until my parents can send me something else. Which means we'll have to go back to either silence or I could just read passages from Advanced Charms." She fiddled with her wand; it still felt strange with his magic stored within its core. "You might like it. It's a classic Dumas. He was a French writer in the nineteenth century..."

Instead of answering her, he merely quirked his eyebrow. She wouldn't admit it to his face, but Hermione actually found the ability to ask a multitude of questions with a single movement, something Slytherins seemed to excel at, actually quite amazing. His raised eyebrow said many things. Oh? Go on. Do tell. Are you kidding me? I'm not amused by this. She decided that this time the raised eyebrow meant that he was curious. And she hoped that he would be. With a name like Malfoy, its French roots clearly visible, she hoped that a French writer would pique his interest.

"Let me get beyond the first few chapters of this last one before you make your decision. But you might enjoy the plot. There's revenge, intrigue, disguises, righteousness and betrayal by those you thought were friends. It's a good story."

"We'll have to see then," he said, leaning down to grab the bucket. He was going to need some more supplies before he started on the next row. "Anything's better than another orphan story."

"Just give me a chance." Hermione finished with the spells, half acknowledging the double meaning behind her statement. It had been a long time since first year when she was a eleven-almost-twelve little girl who just wanted to be given the same kind of opportunity that everyone else had been given. To show that she belonged in this world as much as anyone else. Incessantly trying to better herself so no one would think that they had made a mistake in inviting her to study at this school. All she'd wanted was a chance. That's all she ever asked of anyone.

And now she was asking it of him. There was this moment where the two of them looked at each other. She was waiting for a response. She wasn't sure what he was waiting for.

Then he took a breath and she almost, _almost_ saw a natural smile. But as quick as it was there, it was gone. Perhaps it hadn't been anything. Just her imagination.

Then he spoke. "I plan to."


	10. Writings and scribbles of 2010

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a few, I went through a slump where all I did were fests and not a lot of independant scribbles

**Title:** Fissures  
 **15Pairings Theme:** 14\. Sharp rocks at the bottom  
 **Pairing:** Tracey Davis/Draco Malfoy  
 **Rating** PG 13  
 **Wordcount** 847

~~~

When she falls in love, it's dangerous. It's dangerous because she falls so fucking _hard_ and she hits the bottom with such force that it leaves marks on her heart. Sometimes she curses the fact that she's a slave to her emotions and tries to bottle them up because he certainly can't _know_. But it really isn't something she can contain for long and sooner or later someone is going to notice.

And he does notice.

Probably because she kissed him. Tangled up in his arms with her mouth against his and teeth clacking and devouring him because it just seemed _right_. It's wet and hot and very teenage. She's kissed boys before and it hasn't ever been like this. Perhaps because she just didn't feel anything before with those boys. This is very different. She doesn't want it to end. She loves him. She loves him. She. Loves. Him.

"Why?" Draco looks, for the first time, so very flustered and unkempt. His school uniform is dishevelled and his hair is sticking up on end.

"Because they're making us leave. And you're going to stay. And you might die. And I can't not let you know."

He doesn't die, though. He gets punched in the face by Weasley, but he doesn't die. They lose Vince, who finally decided he had stones and went against Draco's orders. Too bad they were for the wrong cause. Tracey sheds no tears. Vince was an idiot and she's far too happy that Draco is alive. Alive and breathing and yes he looks alone and scared and the pictures they print and the stories they write about his family in later days are excruciating to read. 

Lucius is sent to Azkaban for a stint.

Draco is on probation.

He spends his nights with her. They have sex. They fuck. They make love. She doesn't have a favourite. Every time is different than the last and he learns new ways to make her squirm each time. Touching her in different ways. Fingers. Lips. Teeth. It's wonderful and terrible all at once. She is addicted to him in so many ways.

Or maybe it's just that she loves him.

It all starts to crack apart one day though. And this is where it's dangerous because she's fallen so hard for him that her heart starts to shatter in unbelievably painful ways. Tracey doesn't even hear the news from him. She has to read it in the paper because his mother has started to question his whereabouts at night and keeps better tabs on him now. The family doesn't need another scandal. And that's what Tracey is to them. A scandal. A little half-blood with a Muggle father and far too much dirty blood to be good enough for a Malfoy. 

There's talk. Talk of his family in negotiations with the Greengrass family. That is what she reads in the paper.

Tracey hardens. Draco tries to explain that he's not got a choice. That he has to choose this life or the Malfoys will never have respect again. He doesn't want to. He loves her. They can still be together. Tracey won't listen. She will not be his mistress on the side. It's all or nothing. Love is painful and sharp and she is suffering the consequences of falling.

But she is better than that. 

And throws a vase at him.

It's weeks later, months later, and a horribly painful decision to actually design Astoria's wedding dress because the money was good, that he shows up on her doorstep. He's wearing dress robes. The pleats are ironed sharp and there's a flower pinned to his button hole. Tracey looks about for the nearest vase, but there isn't one about. Lucky Draco.

"I won't do it, Tracey," he says. "I can't marry her and love you and not love her."

Tracey shakes her head. She's pulled herself up halfway from this pit of love with rocks at the bottom that have cut her to ribbons too many times. "I can't be in love with you," she says with a finality that frightens even her. "You'll be disowned. You'll hate yourself and you'll hate me and you'll hate this paycheque to paycheque life. You're too polished for this."

"But..."

"Go back to your wedding, Draco." Her tone is bored. She learned that well from Pansy after all those years of being under the queen bee's boot. Inside she's dying. "There was no point to your coming here. Go fuck your Greengrass. She'll appreciate it more."

His expression floats somewhere between hurt and cold. He leaves with a loud crack and that's when the tears start to fall. She knows this is for the best. She'll be strong because she _is_ strong. She'll find someone else. She'll love them deeply. Draco will always be the first that broke her heart to smithereens, but she'll pick up the pieces and become a better person. She's learned her lesson this time. Love is like tumbling down a cliff.

Sooner or later someone will catch her before she hits the bottom.

 **Title:** Drabblets (count of 2)  
 **Author:**   
**Rating:** PG  
 **Pairings:** Zach/Susan, Draco/Luna  
 **Summary:** None  
 **Word count:** Various counts  
 **Notes:** Written for **cryptaknight** while she was offline. She gave me some pairings and prompts.

***

**Zach/Susan -- Quidditch**

She watches him when he's not looking, her history of magic textbook open on her lap, as he dips and swoops, instructing others on game strategy. Hannah tells Susan it's folly, but Susan figures that if she shows an interest, Zach'll finally see her because it's been four years now. Four years of wanting, four years of watching, four years of wishing and she wants him to know that she's always been there for him and not just in that 'sit in your lap and give you a hug because I'm you're friend and we're Hufflepuffs and we understand the loss of Cedric' kind of way.

After practice he walks back to the school with her, broom safely stowed in the shed.

Susan hugs her textbook to her chest and wishes she didn't blush so much when he puts his arm across her shoulder. She looks at him and smiles because his cheeks are ruddy from play and his hair is all on end. She has a strong urge to smooth it down with her fingers. She's in the deep end when it comes to Zacharias Smith.

One day.

One day she'll let him know. But today is not this day.

 

**Draco/Luna -- wedding reception**

He hadn't ever known that Loony Lovegood was a friend of Millicent Bulstrode. Well. He hadn't known that Millicent Bulstrode was a friend of anyone, let alone some loopy girl from Ravenclaw. But there she was, standing to the side at the Bulstrode-Goyle wedding, looking like she was enjoying the festivities. It was the strangest thing.

It turned out that Lovegood was just as pureblooded as the rest of them and that her and Millicent had known each other through their parents. Something that Draco had not known. How had he not known this? He normally made a habit of knowing everything about his housemates. But this? This was a surprise.

What was more surprising was that Lovegood struck up a conversation with him. How're you? How's your family? Are you enjoying yourself. Draco was baffled. Lovegood spoke to him like they were friends. It confused him immensely.

Like she accepted and forgave him without him having to say he was sorry.

It made Draco look at her differently. It made something twinge in his chest. She smiled. And he smiled along with her.

How did that happen?


	11. More explicit drabbles 2014 - 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These were written for hp_humpdrabbles. They've been posted before and I'm removing them and reposting them here so I can have all my drabbles in one place

**Title:** Boiling  
 **Pairing:** Harry/Pansy  
 **Summary:** What Harry needed right now was someone who made his blood boil.

"You wanted me dead," Harry said as his hands slid over her bare back, tracing the wings of her shoulder blades and the bumps of her spine. Sun-browned hands were in stark contrast to her milk-pale skin. His fingers dipped below the edge of her knickers and the flimsy little straps of her lace suspender belt. He liked that she wore black lace.

"A lot of people wanted you dead," she replied, scooting herself back on the desk until her bum fit against his hips. She wiggled a little and he sucked in a breath, suddenly torn between the urge of giving her arse a swat and turning her over and bearing her down against the rough wood of his desk. Pansy looked back over her shoulder at him, peering through the sharp cut of her fringe. "The Dark Lord wanted you dead. I was just more vocal about it. For reasons no one seems to understand."

The tip of her tongue slid across the curve of her lower lip and she closed her eyes, a keening whine catching in her throat. He felt her body tremble and tighten around his fingers as they slid into her, slowly twisting and pumping against her flesh. He liked how warm and slick Pansy always was, her legs parting easily. Sometimes he had her on her back. But more often he had her bent over the desk, one hand flattened against the small of her back, the other touching her, pressing into her, feeling her quiver.

"If I'd known how good you were with your hands," she said with a whimper, the sound changing to a moan as his fingers shifted, his thumb pressing against her clit. "I... I would have reconsidered."

Harry wanted to hate what he was doing. He wanted to hate that he welcomed her into his office every time. He wanted to send her away. But it always ended like this, with his hands on her body, in her body. He shouldn't like it as much as he did. Ginny was the safer choice. Ginny would have been the more reasonable choice.

But what he needed right now was someone who made his blood boil.

And it seemed like Pansy would be that person.

//////////////////

 **Title** Anchor  
 **Pairing** Michael Corner/Padma Patil, Cho Chang/Michael Corner, Mandy Brocklehurst/Michael Corner  
 **Summary** There are things that anchor a person to a specific location. Memories are the strongest anchors. And Michael has specific ones that he remembers.

Michael holds onto memories because they are precious. Sinfully dirty, but precious nevertheless. Sure there are memories of family and events, happy parties and study sessions in the common room. He remembers those too, though they are fleeting, like smoke. Those are memories that fade like old photographs.

But he remembers girls. With crystal clarity.

He remembers Mandy Brocklehurst and the way she used to buck her hips against his fingers. There was a specific way her body would clench around him. It was as if she was desperately trying to pull him deeper. She used to come with a squeak and then follow it with a whimper. Mandy was a quiet fuck. Never wanting to bellow.

He likes those early memories.

Padma always liked to experiment. Everyone thought she was the prudish twin, but Michael always saw the wilder side. She let him spank her, reddening the cheeks of her bum while her own fingers twiddled across her clit. He remembers that one time she gave him a hand job in middle of History of Magic, stroking his cock under the desk until he made a right mess of his trousers. She smelled deceptively sweet, like flowers. Delicate.

And yet anything but.

Michael remembers everything about Cho Chang. He remembers her being sad about Potter and he remembers their first kiss, her bottom lip trembling against his. He remembers the curve of her cheek and the way her small breasts fit into his palms exactly. Cho had a softness that no other girl had and a strength he'd not seen either.

Cho filled his head with very permanent thoughts that always seemed so out of place in a war and when they were together, it wasn't sex. It was bigger than that. He remembers that their bodies moved together so perfectly that he couldn't imagine being with anyone else after her.

Michael remembers being in love.

So when he looks down at himself, sprawled on the floor of the Great Hall, eyes open and lifeless, Michael tries not to think about his soul or his spirit. Instead he focuses on the memories to tie him to Hogwarts. Mandy's little squeaks. Padma's wild abandon. Cho's beauty and the way she loved him back.

Michael remembers dying. He remembers the spell and who killed him. The name doesn't matter. He remembers it all.

But living is what he remembers the most.

////////////////////

 **Title:** Respite  
 **Pairing:** Ernie/Susan  
 **Summary:** Ernie doesn't understand Susan

Ernie doesn't think about terrible things when he's in the greenhouse. It's his only escape. He doesn't think of the dark, or the pain, or the Carrows torturing first years. At least he tries not to think about it. He tries to keep his mind blank instead of focusing on things that are entirely out of his control. And if he can't keep his mind blank, then he keeps it busy with whatever task he's volunteered to do for Professor Sprout.

This time it's transplanting Mandrakes.

Last time it was trimming the Venomous Tentacula.

With his ears covered, he doesn't hear her step up behind him. He feels her though. He feels the heat of her body, a different kind of heat from the temperature of the greenhouse, and he feels the breath on the back of his neck that causes a shiver to run down his spine. This shouldn't be a surprise. It's not the first time this has happened.

Ernie pushes the Mandrake that he was about to yank from the soil a little bit deeper under the dirt to keep it from shrieking. Then he turns, his hip scraping against the table. His mouth goes dry and all he can manage is a strangled noise.

"Susan… "

Susan Bones. He doesn't quite understand the girl… no, woman… standing in front of him. He doesn't understand a lot of things. She doesn't behave this way during the day, nor does she ever make any sort of indication that she's the type of person to approach another wearing nothing but her knickers. It's only when he's alone, when he's doing work in the greenhouse.

She reaches up and plucks the earmuffs from his head, dropping them on the ground. Ernie wants to reach for her, run his hands over her bare torso and cup her breasts. He wants to cover her nipple with his lips and worry at it until it's stiff and as flushed as the rest of her. But he doesn't do what he wants. No part of his body will listen to his brain. A smile spreads across her face. Then she's pulling at his belt and dropping to her knees as she lowers his trousers. Ernie can only manage to grip the edge of the Mandrake table, sucking in a laboured breath as her mouth engulfs him, wet and hot.

Ernie doesn’t understand Susan.

He wants to understand her though. Sometimes he thinks that it would be nice to understand her and perhaps feel like they're not two empty shells that occasionally fuck in greenhouse number three to escape the terrors outside.


End file.
